The Next Step.

It was the end of the trail, but not the end of the ride, as I still had to make my way to the coast to complete my round-the-world challenge.  Lucy dropped us off in Old Sacramento the next morning Wednesday 5th April and we made out way across the historic Tower Bridge which spans the Sacramento river (Pony club kids, never ever tie your pony up this way) ...

 Although it was only built in 1934, the bridge is very distinctive. Unlike the more famous London example in which two sections of the middle span between the towers lift up to let ships pass between, this is an example of a vertical lift bridge in which the entire middle span between the towers raises up to let the ships pass beneath.

Then it was a trudge through the western sprawl of Sacramento and over the 3.2mile Yolo causeway which links Sacramento with the town of Davis.   In the days of the Pony Express it was not possible to ride directly due west due to the wide band of wetlands along the Sacramento river which are subject to regular flooding. This is why the Pony Express mail was carried between San Francisco and Sacramento by steamship.    The original causeway was built in 1916 and the current one in 1962.  It is carried on pillars over the Yolo Bypass, which carries excess floodwater during heavy rains. The official name is the Blecher-Freeman Memorial Causeway after two patrolman who were shot in the line of duty in 1978.

  

 

Ex Brit from Richmond Paul Storey and friend Edward Serrano walking Mucca the dog....

I was now travelling without backup again, and to make life easier, had tried to sort out some definite places that would accommodate Lady.  At the last minute I had contacted Black Crest Friesians which was located a few miles the other side of the causeway, and was immediately given an invitation for both Lady and myself to stay by owner Sandi Riemenschneider.    I turned up at a pristine ranch with ebony horses behind white fences tossing their long black manes in emerald green paddocks.   I was idly chatting to Sandi and husband Ron over a glass of wine and telling them about my Welsh ponies when she mentioned that her neighbouring vet David Valchak had just been to the UK and bought a Welsh cob.  There could not be too many Californian vets who had just travelled to the UK to buy a Welsh cob.   "Is it a two year old filly?" I asked.   "Yes I think it is" said Sandi.   She immediately got on the blower.  Yes it was Carrie's vet who had been to Synod stud with Owen! This obviously necessitated a visit to see the filly, so here is Joy Valchek with their new pride and joy Synod Ruby...

 ....and here am I with David and Joy......

David specialises in AI and was a mine of information on the subject. 

All in all fabulous evening with good food, wine and company followed by a comfortable bed!

And here is Sandi the next morning Thursday 6th April with Lady and Joy who came over to see me off...

Unfortunately I got a little lost when Sandi sent me off on a shortcut across the fields, but she soon set me straight and even came to meet me as I had left my map behind (for a change!)



The Central Valley is the most productive agricultural area in the United States, but over the last few years has been suffering from prolonged drought. However thanks to me it was now temporarily out of danger, as rain accompanied me for the next few days.

Crops are irrigated with buried plastic pipes which may be pierced with holes along their length have small taps fitted, as shown in this photo with the taps protruding above the surface....

 I had conjectured that the strange green fruit on these irrigated trees might be plums...

...but in fact they turned out to be almonds.....

To my surprise I discovered that almonds are not only one of the main crops in the Central Valley, but the area accounts for about sixty percent of world production. 

Petra had planned to meet up with me at the weekend to ride over the Blue Mountains, but due to the rain here which translated into snowfall on the Sierras, she decided to come over a day early to make sure she did not get stuck on the other side.  She met me at my next stopover the Sunfire Equestrian Centre, where proprietor Alana Curtis kindly provided Red and Lady with outdoor paddocks and let me use the living area in her trailer.  She had to dash off so no photos, though here is one Petra took of me arriving..

 

 I had hoped to take an off road route over the Blue Ridge to Lake Berryessa, and after a lot of research and endless phoning around on the part of Petra and myself, we managed to get the necessary permissions.  I had managed to identify and contact Pete Craig who ranched the mountainside on the western flank of the range running down to the lake, and now he phoned to ask us out to dinner in Davis with some family and friends.    So we ended up having a great evening in a lively restaurant while the rain beat down outside.   

The End of the Trail!

Tuesday 4th April was a significant day in more ways than one.  Firstly I completed my journey along the Pony Express Trail, but secondly I had timed it to coincide with the date that the first mail left Sacramento 157 years ago.   But the first mail left on April 3rd I hear you exclaim!  And that is true, but it actually left from San Francisco (at 4pm on April 3rd), and was only carried by the pony with rider James Randall as far as the waterfront.  Here it was put on the steamship Antelope to Sacramento, where it arrived in the early hours of the following morning. The first rider to carry the mail out of Sacramento at 2.45am on 4th April 1860 was William (Sam) Hamilton, and one could argue this is where the pony part of the Pony Express eastern run really began.
Lucy and I were certainly not intending to start at such an ungodly hour, and set off from home at a more respectable time.  Lucy was going to meet up with me to ride the last couple of miles into old Sacramento on Mohawk, her pinto Tennessee Walking Horse, but dropped Lady and me back at CalExpo to cover the section in between.  Unfortunately I discovered I had left my camera battery behind, so this post has to rely on a few photos on my Kindle.

As we neared Sacramento, the trail rapidly began to acquire a different atmosphere.  Gone were the lycra clad cyclists and instead we passed a small tent camp of homeless people and dogs.  There were occasional glimpses of tent camps tucked away in the backwoods......

The completely deserted trail had a post apocalyptic look.   An abandoned raft washed up on the side of the muddy path ....

 ...was it really capable of floating?
Mud plastering everything bore evidence of recent flooding, and in the distance in this photo, a fallen tree blocked the path....

 ..people had evidently been using a narrow gap on the right hand side to negotiate it, but as I drew nearer there were ominous rustlings in the bushes.  Was it an ambush?  I suspect not but I still pushed my way quickly through the thickets on the other side without dismounting.
We started to encounter swampy flooded sections with creepers draping the trees, and I half expected to see zombies wading out of the tangled foliage.....

  In fact this flooded section was only a couple of hundred yards long, and to my surprise I emerged at the far end to find three of the lycra brigade faltering at the edge of the flood before they turned tail.

I met Lucy as planned just the other side of the Jibboom St bridge over the American river, and we rode into town along the side of the Sacramento river.    Lucy and I pose in front of the Hastings building where the Wells Fargo and Pony Express offices were housed.....

and in front of the Pony Express statue on the other side of the road...

 Note we are both decked out in our Pony Express uniforms of blue jeans, red shirts, leather waistcoats, yellow bandanas and cowboy boots.
No cheering crowds waiting to greet us , but we celebrated with a very welcome (and delicious) ice-cream, in my case a suitably named Rocky Road

There was just time afterwards for a trip to see the Kirtlan family who live not far from Sacramento.  I had met Carrie Kirtlan when I was judging at a Welsh breeds show in California in September 2015, and she contacted me last autumn.  They were coming over to Wales for the Welsh cob sales and were on the look out for a nice Welsh cob stallion.  Could I advise on the best studs to visit?  Sods law I would be riding in California at the same time as they would be in Wales, but I gave her an introduction to Owen Griffiths, a former Welsh Pony and Cob Society Young Ambassador who I felt sure would be able to help them out.
The result was that he took them up to the renowned Synod stud after they had failed to find something to their liking at the sales, and they had done a deal on a young Welsh cob colt who in due course had followed them back to Sacramento.   And here he is in his new home....

Carrie's vet had accompanied them just for the trip, but had also ended up buying a Synod Welsh cob, in his case a two year filly Synod Ruby.

Trailing Along

Setting off from Rescue on Sunday 2nd April. 

If I only had a heart I would have put something in this guy's mailbox..

 Peyton and Alison Oxford come out to see Lady...

 After a few hours ride along the highways and byways of Sacramento county, we reached Folsom Lake and stopped for a break.  Lady is transfixed not by the stunning view but by the sound of Mexicans party party partying round the headland....

 I was totally baffled by this large random model of a guitar by the trail a little further on, but the more savvy among you (Well done Stu who got it in one!) should be able to get the connection if you know it was close to Folsom Prison which we happened to be riding past......

There is a clue at the bottom of the post.

Crossing the Folsom trestle bridge over the American River...

 We were now on the American River Trail, which follows the American River on either or both banks all the way to Sacramento.    But not for long in our case as we soon came across this sign...

..and it seemed from the barrier further along that after the recent rains the inevitable had happened - ROCKSLIDES!   Our route was cut off and we had to deviate along the top of the bluffs....

.before scrambling back down to the main trail.
We were riding down river alongside Lake Natoma, which is held back by the Nimbus Dam...

In the distance you can see the Nimbus Bridge which was our destination for the day, as Lucy had very kindly offered to pick us up in the trailer and take us to her home.

Monday 3rd April was another day of idyllic riding along the American River Trail

A rest break near the bicycle bridge in the William B Pond Recreation Area ...

...and if anyone finds a long piece of rope here, it is my tethering rope which I accidently left behind -  one of many scattered around the world I fear
.
The sort of sign Lady and I like to see...

 

Wild turkey legging it across the trail...

Seventeen miles further down the trail, Lucy picked me up outside CalExpo - the California State Fairground just outside Sacramento.

CLUE:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMyzoHBtaME 

And the trail the guitar is on goes through the prison grounds and is named after this icon!.

To the Rescue

I woke up at Petra's on Thursday April 30th to this scene..

....to match up with the rainy and sunny options I have put on the blog before. 

My main concern was whether I would make it back over the Sierras to Pollock Pines, but in fact I had no trouble and had an interesting drive via Reno and the site of Sutter's Mill in Coloma where gold was first discovered in 1848, sparking off the Californian gold rush. Back at Jim and Ginger's I walked down to the barn to be confronted with a very portly Lady who had obviously not been stinting on food intake over the winter. 

Friday April 31st was action day. After returning my hire car to Sacramento airport and getting a lift back to Pollock Pines from Lucy, later in the day Lady waddled the short distance from the point beyond Camino where I finished riding in October down the road and a short stretch of trail to Placerville.  No photos as I had forgotten my camera, but we were on the move at last!

Lady and I set off in earnest from Placerville on Saturday April 1st hoping we would not become April fools.  Placerville was once called Hangtown due to the numbers of criminals strung up on a public hang tree in Main St during the gold rush days. 

First stop was to get some dosh. And no I am not intending to become another victim of the hang tree by carrying out a mounted robbery of the Bank of America....

 ...but parking Lady under the wary eye of a bemused security guard before using the ATM.  
The Pony Express station is no more, but in a fate decreed to many a station at this end of the trail, it was destined to become part of yet another car park, this time belonging to Mel's Diner, where is the usual monument and plaque on the corner.

Lady at the Diamond Springs Pony Express monument a few miles further on...

 ...not to be confused with the Diamond Springs Pony Express stations in Nebraska and Nevada.

Diamond Springs was so called not because of diamond discoveries (though a 25lb gold nugget was found here) but its crystal clear waters. I had an opportunity to refresh myself not with crystal clear water but with a coffee in the café across the road which was equipped with a convenient hitching rail...

...the Korean owner was keen to record the event for posterity on his mobile phone. Notice Lady is decked out in natty fluorescent gear with reflective strips in preparation for the busy roads ahead. 

I suspect this is not a practical joke....

I was very fortunate to have a place to stay that night with good friends of Jim and Ginger's near Rescue....  

...fellow Brit Gloria and husband Pat. A chance to indulge in a nice cuppa before I went to bed. 

Lady was tethered at the bottom of the garden ...

 ....at least until she became unsettled by a passing gaggle of wild turkeys, when we moved her to the kitchen garden.

Back to the Golden State

The final part of the adventure began when I flew into Los Angeles on Monday 27th March 2017 and picked up my hire car for the long drive up to Sacramento, stopping at a motel overnight on the way. On Tuesday 28th March I briefly called in at Pollock Pines to see Jim and Ginger before driving on over the Sierra Nevada as I wanted to visit a few places I had missed out on in the autumn.

There have been unusually heavy snowfalls this year so I was glad I had made it over the Sierra Nevada before the snows set in last year or I would have been trapped on the other side well into June.  The photo below shows the depth of snow still existing near Echo Summit at the end of April .....

....amazing to think that part of the trail leads off to the right of the photo and through the trees.  The huge snowbank did not exist then, and an idea of scale is given by the car on the road in the middle distance.
At the foot of the Sierras on the other side I stopped at the site of Meyers Pony Express station, on the shorter but steeper route over the Kingsbury Grade from Genoa to Stateline.  I had taken the longer route via Woodfords.  It is now the location of Lira's Market, though there is a small monument in front of the store....

 On reaching Carson City I managed to find the monument to the Carson City Pony Express station...

Not sure what the photo-bombing dalek is.
Nothing remains of the original Pony Express station, which may have been at the site of this car park a couple of hundred yards to the south which is located on Carson St between 4th and 5th Sts....

As territorial capital and the first large settlement the pony express reached after galloping across the Nevada desert from Salt Lake City, Carson City was a natural location for a home station.

I also had a vain attempt to find Ormsby House which was the home of the Major Ormsby who led the ill-fated expedition against the Paiute in May 1860 which was one of the factors sparking the Paiute war.  It is only later that I have realised I was being directed to a large modern hotel/casino (which has been closed for years) on the corner of Carson St and 5th.  For anyone who is interested, the old house was in a different location on the corner of Carson St and 2nd and was demolished in the mid 1900s.

After a night at Petra's house near the Washoe Lake which is now full of water again, I made an early start on the morning of Wednesday 29th March.  My first stop was Dayton, as when I rode through in October I had not realised there were still remnants of the old Pony Express station there.  Attached to the old Union Hotel is a freestanding wall which is part of the old station.  In this view of the back of the hotel it can be seen clearly as the old stone wall with an archway to the left, attached to the back of the Union Hotel which is on the right...

The Union Hotel is currently being renovated by its new owners, and according to their website the plan with the Pony Express station wall is  ".. to repoint the stones, rebuild the window and add a concrete beam to the top to hold together the loose bits and prevent rain from seeping into the interior of the wall"
A view at the front of the hotel - remnants of the stone side wall of the old station can be seen in the gap between the wooden buildings.

 As can be seen from the water tower....

 ...Dayton still strongly disputes Genoa's claim to be the first settlement in Nevada!

A long drive east across the desert and up a gravel track brought me to ruins of Sand Springs Pony Express station, which we had not had time to visit when we followed the trail in October.  To recap on its history, it was built in March 1860 by Division Superintendent Bolivar Roberts.
The view below shows the dark station walls.  The low dip in the right hand side of the skyline is Simpsons Pass where the power station we camped beside is sited. The Pony Express riders followed the trail off to the right to cross the alkali flats in the middle distance and over the pass to Carson Sink.  We followed the route of the re-ride which skirts the alkali flats off to the left and runs along the base of the Cocoon Mountains on the horizon.

 The station had been covered by sand and lain lost and undisturbed for years.  Then in 1975 it was rediscovered by a team of archaeologists from Nevada State University and the following year was excavated and stabilised.  Unfortunately the black basalt walls have been degraded in places by sightseers scrambling over them, and there are now notices exhorting visitors to refrain from this activity.
As an outlying station in a godforsaken spot, relying on a sulphurous water supply and under constant threat of Paiute attack, it is perhaps not surprising that some of the most common artifacts dug up here were empty liquor bottles.  Supplies of fodder and food (as well as the demon drink which they had sworn on a bible not to imbibe!) had to be brought in by wagon pulled by horses or oxen.

The room below in the southwest corner was one of the living areas and contained a fireplace in the far corner.

It was originally part of a larger room with a wooden floor, but was later divided into two (the end of the dividing wall shows at the bottom right of the photo). It is thought the second room was later used for battery storage when the Transcontinental telegraph came this way. 

This room in the northwest corner was used as a smithy and cooking room...

It contained a shallow stone well, and wire and iron hooks found here suggest that there was a device to raise water.  A firepit was used for blacksmithing and cooking.   Besides these rooms there was space for tack and storage, stables and an additional corral within a basalt stone wall. 

By the time Sir Richard Burton came through the station was "roofless and chairless, filthy and squalid with the smoky fire in one corner and a table on an impure floor, the walls open to every wind and the interior full of dust"   This condition was probably partly due to the ravages of Paiute, though it was never attacked when the station hands were 'at home'. 

One of the original station masters was Montgomery Maze.  He was holding the fort when Pony Bob Haslam made the return journey on his famous 380mile ride and persuaded Maze to accompany him to Carson Sink, having found Cold Springs burning and the station keeper dead..  He later became a rider on this section, riding from Friday's to Reese River.  However it was he who was involved in the infamous shooting of H Trumbo at Smith's Creek, and although he was not actively punished, he was 'let go' from the employ of the Pony Express shortly after. 

Catching Up

Those who have been following my facebook posts will be aware that I completed the Pony Express Trail on April 4th earlier this year, and made it to the Pacific coast on the Easter weekend to complete my round-the-world ride.  However I have been unable to update my blog due to a series of setbacks which have included losing my laptop on the flight home followed by my home computer crashing. This meant I was unable to edit photos for inclusion in my blog posts, and as I base the posts round the photos it effectively prevented me from adding to my blog.  When my computer was eventually replaced I then found it was not provided with the relevant version of Adobe Photoshop, and after sorting that out discovered I was unable to upload my video clips to YouTube.  Grrrr.  However I think everything is now up and running and I have spent some time editing photos, so hopefully I will soon be able to bring my blog up to date with a more detailed version of events.
So Watch This Space!

Recuperation

After arriving home on November 6th I was confined to barracks for over a week as I was unable to drive with my cast. On top of this my computer crashed so neither could I sort out my photos or catch up with my blog, even one-handed.  At least I had an excuse besides pleading exhaustion to lie in bed watching daytime television and reading.   But ten days after arriving home I emerged from my local hospital in Carmarthen with a funky new cast for which I was able to choose the colour.  What did I choose you may ask?  As I was about to attend one of my social occasions of the year it had to be black to match my little black dress.  This was for a do in Cardiff in aid of my beneficiary charity Challenge Aid founded and run by husband Iestyn. So here I am glammed up on top table next to Iestyn (white shirt and dark jacket)..

..the guy in beard and glasses is son Gethin and the other gentlemen L to R are Welsh rugby internationals Sam Warburton, Craig Quinell and George North, and on the far right rugby journalist Rhodri Gomer Davies who is the son of one of my oldest friends.

Through fitness promoting challenges, the charity raises money to take children out of poverty through education.  The main programme focuses on creating 'Schools of Hope' in slum and deprived areas of Kenya and Tanzania. These provide a safe environment for children to study out of school hours.   In 2016 over 40% of Form 4 students from the seventeen longest established schools went on to University & higher education, an amazing achievement which surpasses the state school results.

My cast was off in time for usual hectic Christmas - ten for Christmas dinner, twenty-two for family dinner, indeterminate number for New Year's Wild West party - guess what I went as. 

I had intended to fly out to California to finish the ride after Christmas, and had in fact booked a flight for early January However when I checked my insurance I found my wrist would not be covered at all for three months, so to be on the safe side I took the decision to delay until the spring.

New addition to the family at the end of February has been a completely hyperactive Welsh sheepdog puppy Tawe (pronounced Toweh - tow as in how)

  Of course I had to buy her a couple of sheep, and they had to be my old favourites Welsh Badger-Face - I used to have a small flock of around ninety.