Sunday Drive

One of the things I've always wanted to do but haven't yet done is go camping with horses. Of course I'm not counting the times we've been to a horse show and camped out then. I mean take the horses to a remote area and spend the day fooling around and camp out. No 7-11s down the road or the bathroom in the barn at the stable. I mean real camping in a tent with the horses tied out and all of us loaded up with fly spray.

I've kind of been getting a hankering to go camping again, since it's been a couple of years, and this time I really do want to take the horse. Actually now, I have to say, pony.

I'm not sure how this all came about but we decided to go check out Manter Meadow, a spot where you have to hike about 2 1/2 miles to get in. It's way past Lake Isabella and Kernville. It takes a few hours to get there from Bakersfield, but once you are there it is so worth the trip. Here is a picture of Big Meadow, which is near the one of the trail heads to get to Manter Meadow.

Along the way we were surprised to see quite a few wildflowers were still blooming. Here's an Anderson's Thistle.
Even though most of the flowers were past their prime, from a distance they still made splashes of color here and there.

And every once in a while there would be these tall red flowers, off in the woods. Most were alone or with just a few like flowers.

They are called sacrodes sanguinea, or snow plant!

Finally we got to the trail head. There was a gentleman there with his horse and two mules. He was about to go on the trail himself, after he had his lunch. He said it wasn't too bad of a trail, with two or three rocky areas, and the majority of the trail quite nice.

We walked about a half mile in, but since it was already later in the afternoon we turned around and headed back. These pictures are coming back from where we turned around. You can see most of the trail is very nice.

This was at the top of a hill right after the first few yards of the trail. From this point on towards Manter Meadow it's down hill.

But first we had to climb up hill. (Remember this is going back to the trail head.)

This is the rocky area. It really wasn't too bad and I totally think Flora could handle it. We just want to use her saddle as a pack thing or maybe buy a saddle pannier and lead her. Once we get to the camp area I could then ride her around and explore.

Here's the guy we met on his horse and leading his mules in.

I'm really jealous.