Golden Girls Ride Across America

The idea seriously hit me about spring 2006.  Ride across America!  I had dreamed about it forever!  Now the trail was there, I could do it!  Who would go with me? HOLLY!  Do you want to go? Let’s do it! 

The American Discovery Trail is the first non-motorized trail from Atlantic to Pacific, and will be the main route to use.

Download maps and info from the internet, research sites, ask questions of the people who had ridden or walked the Trail.  Trail sites for each state and personal experience from riders of those trails.

 Shoes or boots? (for the horse)  What shots and etc would be needed to cross each state line?  Would we know when we crossed the state lines? GPS. Get one and learn to use it!  Extra horse for pack?  Chuck wagon/horse trailer? Diet for people and horses.  Consistent hay or alfalfa cubes. Soaked beet pulp and hay cubes.  Consistent supply of feed and where to get it along the way.  Desert crossing, mountain crossing, stream and river crossing.  Water and clothes. Traffic, bridges? Where are horses forbidden and how to get around?  Let’s get started!  Get sponsors, too.

I found a good site, Back Country Horseman, with contacts in many states, willing to help and advise, and maybe ride along for a while.  I will join and have access to this information as well.   Research, research, research. 

OOPS!  A couple hitches (no pun intended).  Sam graduates June 2007, Eva graduates June 2008, gotta be here for that!    How about getting more ladies to go?!   Some one to alternate riding and driving the ‘chuck wagon’.

 And my knees.  It’s now January 2007 and both knees will be replaced by June of this year, putting back travel training for a time.  Stronger and better! We’ll figure it out.

Research, research, research. 

 June, 2007

Okay. One knee is done, I’m riding a little, and have spent lots of time researching sites and maps and emailing.

In the interim, Flame cannot make the trip.  Young horse Shama will have to be made ready to go spring, 2009.  She has had three months professional breaking at King’s Fork Training Center, Suffolk, and will need the year of training and conditioning to get ready.  Will she make it?  Will I make it?!

 We are about ready now……………………..2009

 Holly is a retired nurse, Jane is a ‘retired’ home maker.  Both have had a desire to make this kind of horse journey, unknown to the other, for many years.  Our children grew up during the same time frame and our daughters were in the same 4-H horse club.  Both of us are now senior women with the craving for adventure on horseback.

Holly’s mare, Sundae, is an Arab/Saddlebred cross from Idaho.  Jane’s young mare (five Years old in April), Shamadagari, is a Virginia bred Arabian.

 This is our American Journey/Adventure!

 Instead of going to Delaware, where the ADT begins at Cape Henlopen Park, we will begin our ride on the Northern Neck of Virginia, almost the Atlantic!  The Chesapeake Bay’s waters flow into the Atlantic, we are from Virginia and want to start here, so……check our blog...