The Original 4×4

I’ve spent years showing horses and since starting college almost 4 years ago and selling my show horse I have missed it greatly. I am incredibly lucky to still own horses, and I would not trade the memories, friends I have made and fun I have had with them for anything. In my 15 or so years of being around horses I have logged many miles doing the simplest thing. Trail riding.

While I also enjoy hiking, trail riding is my favorite way to cover ground. I couldn’t even imagine how many miles I have logged in Brown County State Park, Hoosier National Forrest, Eminence Missouri and private woods everywhere between. Saddle bags full of drinks and snacks, a good horse and a few friends are all you need to have a good time. Even the worst day in the woods on a horse is better than a day at work. If nothing else, misfortune makes for a great story afterwards.

Over the summer me and two friends loaded up to go on a short trail ride. Against my morals I decided not to pack snacks (I feel very strongly about snacks) and only grabbed a couple bottles of water. It was only going to be a short ride, right? Five hours later, and incredibly dehydrated and hungry we somehow managed to find the truck and trailer. At the time it was very unpleasant but now, it is a funny story.

Although I do a lot of day trips throughout the year I also enjoy camping with horses. There are actually quite a few places in Indiana, and all over the US to camp with your horses. My two favorite places in Indiana to camp is Brown County Horseman’s Camp and Hoosier Horse Camp in the Hoosier National Forrest in Norman, Indiana. I will say I have successfully avoided tent camping and much prefer ‘glamping.’ Many horse trailers have living quarters in the front half and I prefer to camp with running water and a full bathroom and kitchen. There is nothing better than sitting next to a campfire in the late fall while horses munch quietly on hay at the hitch rail next to you.

I have trail rode many horses, but I have to include my favorite horse. Many horse people talk about having their “heart horse.” A heart horse is in short, a favorite horse that is irreplaceable and will always have a special place with you. My ‘heart horse’ is Bullseye, a registered Quarter Horse. He is nearing 24 and is now retired but he has been in my life for nearly 10 years. We have been all over together and some of my favorite memories involve him.

Who said horses were fun?

You know the weird horse girl in elementary school that was obsessed with horses? Well, I was homeschooled but if I wasn’t I would have been that girl. I would say now as a college senior I am still the weird horse girl. In the past 15 years horses have taken me all over, from showing, trail riding, and even Standardbred harness racing. I decided to make this blog post a little different and talk about traveling with horses.

Horses are constantly trying to kill themselves. When not being big dumb toddlers, they are looking for ways to cause you financial stress and gray hair. I would say that fellow equestrians are some of the toughest individuals out there, dumb but tough. One of the dumb things we like to do is go on ‘vacations’ with our horses. I have been to a bunch of horse shows, a few trips to Missouri and Florida. Here are a few things that stick out to me about traveling with horses.

If the horses are not causing you stress, the government will. Any horse that travels over stateliness has to have the correct paperwork. The paperwork required is from a vet and clears them of one specific medical condition, equine infectious anemia. They also must have health papers that expire every 30 days. If you are pulled over and do not have the proper paperwork your truck, trailer, and horses can be impounded. In Florida they have check stations for people coming and going to check paperwork and make sure that the papers match the horse.

If you are hauling them in hot weather, you will constantly be concerned that they are to hot. It’s even worse hauling them in the cold. To blanket or not blanket, either way is probably wrong, and you are going to end up pulling over every hour to check and see if they are too hot or cold.

So, you have all the paperwork, the feed and hay loaded, your own things loaded and finally the horse is in the trailer. Now for the most exciting part, dealing with other drivers. This post is turning into a PSA before it turns into a rant. Don’t cut people off, don’t tailgate and give us space. We are hauling 1,000-pound animals that are standing on legs that have a lot of the same properties as a toothpick.

Detour

Maybe it’s the Midwesterner in me? Or that I’ve been to about 29 states, give or take a few. Or that I recently found out flying makes me really sick. But long road trips do not phase me. 16-hour drive? Give me a bag of snacks and some drinks and I’ll be ready to go. Throw in that I am very impromptu and up for any type of adventure and it’s a recipe for something. I say something because 9/10 it’s some sort of disaster.

Its 856 miles from my house to Grand Isle, Louisiana where I currently was. We were preparing to head back home after a week. Me and my friend however decided to make a small detour into Gatlinburg, Tennessee. When I say small I mean that it turned our drive into a 1,078-mile trip home. We decided to go to Gatlinburg for one thing, Ripley’s Aquarium. It was a Tuesday, in February, and there was a terrible storm coming through. All the roads were flooding and we were about 900 percent sure that death was imminent. But we lived and due to these factors, we had almost the whole aquarium to ourselves. Totally worth it.

I was able to find my favorite animal, that I had no idea existed till this day. Many people would think it would be a horse or something majestic maybe, but no. It’s a mudskipper. A mudskipper is this gross little fishy thing that can live both in and out of water. They can also climb trees. The best part about them is that they scream at each other when out of the water. You can also buy them online for $30. I don’t know how to take care of one, but my future husband has to be okay with me having a mudskipper in the living room. If I had to guess I’ll probably be able to add that to the list of reasons of why I am not married.

On the way home, we decided to yet make another detour. This time to Lexington, Kentucky. What for? To see Cocaine Bear, also known as Pablo EskoBear. To fully appreciate the bear, that has maybe the worst taxidermy job I’ve ever seen (I live in southern Indiana, okay? I’ve seen a lot of taxidermy) you have to know the story.

As the story goes, drug smuggling Andrew Thornton II, was a narcotics cop, and later lawyer that in his free time smuggled guns and drugs. In 1985 Thornton was smuggling, you guessed it, cocaine in from Columbia, he jumped from his plane and got tangled in his parachute. Embarrassing. His body was found in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was wearing Gucci and had 75 pounds of cocaine in a duffle bag. Three months after that a black bear was found dead in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It is said that the bear over dosed on 40 kilos of cocaine that Thornton had dropped along the way. The bear was stuffed and put in a visitors center in Georgia. Then came a wildfire, and the bear was put in storage, and then Waylon Jennings got it. Then someone in Reno, Nevada bought the bear for $200 when Jennings passed away. The now owners of the bear tracked it down and had it shipped from Reno to Kentucky where it currently resides.

That’s a story and a stuffed bear worth making a detour for. I got a t-shirt that has a picture of the bear with cocaine over its nose, surprisingly enough I have found exactly zero times that shirt is appropriate.

800 Miles In A VW Bug

16 hours in a Volkswagen Bug, diesel one one that black smoked like a truck. It cost $80 dollars in fuel to get from Indiana to Louisiana, so what it lacks for in size it makes up for in fuel efficiency. We stayed on a small island called Grande Isle, known for its fishing. It is a whole different world down there. All the house are built on sticks, about 10-15 feet off the ground Incase of a flood. Before the island that is full of mostly nice houses you pass a lot of house trailers and travel trailers, some with ratchet straps holding the roofs on. It’s very interesting to say the least. During our week there we went to the beach, spent a day in New Orleans, went to see Plantation houses, got voo-doo cursed by a woman in a CVS parking lot, and went on a nature walk. Mandalay National Wildlife Refugee is a nature walk, basically though the swamps in Houma. We found it on Trip Advisor and decided to go. All through the drive there, down a two mile gravel road you are told to stay in the car.

Once you arrive you are told to leave firearms in the car and to not interact with the wildlife. The mile long hike into the forest takes you to a big marshy lake that has signs that say swimming in designated areas only, but there’s also signs that say to watch for alligators. Obviously we did not do any swimming. We didn’t see any gators since it was February but it would not be a trail I would like to take in the summer. All through the trail on the wooden walks there were claw and scrap marks from the gators.

The food is one of the most interesting things I have experienced. One of the places the locals rave about is called Spahrs at the Station. It is literally a gas station with a restaurant attached to it. Of course we had to try it and we were very surprised to find that is was actually expensive, but delicious. I don’t think that I would eat something like that in in Indiana, but I really like seeing people’s faces when I tell them I’ve ate seafood pasta from a gas station in Louisiana.

Introduction

I don’t like to stay still for very long. You know those really annoying people who never want to sit still on vacation? Yeah, that’s me. I am always on trip advisor and trying to find something to do. Thankfully my friend is the same and that’s why we make such a great team. Outside of working, school, and horses I love to go on trips. Chicago, Tennessee, Kentucky, or Louisiana we can find something to do anywhere we go. Over my next few posts I am going to share with you some of the crazy situations we’ve gotten into, from a 5-hour detour to Tennessee to a man trying to sell us drugs while sitting next to us in traffic in New Orleans. I have had so many things happen to me that make me think “Is this real?”

My dad is a truck driver, by the time I was 5 I had already been to about 29 states. Being in a semi doesn’t leave much time for exploring though so I think that is why I love to travel so much now.