Rick was the only guest at Ranger Creek when I arrived. He was from Illinois, owned two horses himself and came up to the ranch for riding in the mountains. His horse for the week was Chico and I think Rick had a good time with this big horse.

It was the day when I rode C.O.D for the first time that Rick himself led the morning trailride. Well, I should not quite call it a trailride but at least we started out on a trail. Shane was running drag while another guy (James) from Texas who had just arrived with his dad and their own two Tennessee Walker horses joined us as well.
It seemed to me that Rick wanted to go on the beautiful ridge ride but soon enough he left the trail and went straight into the woods. We all followed him and wanted to find out where Rick wanted to go. He forced his way through fallen treetrunks and bushes, uphill and downhill, downhill and uphill. I gave my life into the hands of C.O.D., my good old faithful horse. It was such an interesting ride especially because in Germany, people would never ride like that. I very early lost my sense of direction and asked Shane if he had ever been here before. When he said 'no' I went on trusting C.O.D and Rick who was still leading with Chico.

After riding cross-country for a little while (I'm not sure how long it took us to get back because I had also lost my sense of time). Suddenly someone said: "Looks like a trail!" I woke up. Yes? -- No, not really. So some up- and downhill riding, some really steep up- and downhill riding actually until we finally crossed the Ridge Ride Trail again. I didn't know how we found it but thanks Rick for directing us back to the ranch. It was certainly an adventure.