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1/13 & 1/14/10
1/13/10, Buena Vista, AR - We took a day off at the roadside park to give the team a rest and time for Bill’s foot to heal. We spent the day relaxing, doing some wagon maintenance, and working on Bill’s foot.
Bill had a bruise in his frog, sometimes called a pavement sore or road founder. Treatment was fairly easy - pare the frog back so it doesn’t contact the ground, and re-shoe the hoof with a pad. By evening, he was walking normally and seemed in pretty good shape. If you would have seen him the night before, you would have thought his leg was falling off. In a nutshell - Bill is a Wimp. But he’s a nice wimp, who works pretty hard, so I guess I’ll just be the owner of a wimpy horse.
All day long we had visitors stopping by to chat and see the horses. I managed to install and wire in a set of head lights for the wagon (just in case we get caught out again after dark).
A special ‘Thank You’ to Marty McCallister, the Park Attendant, for all his help.
1/14/10, McNeil, AR - We were packed and ready to travel at about 8 am. I ponied Bill behind the wagon. I’ll give him a couple of more days off before hitching him up again.
Not far down the road, we met Terry Tucker and his grandson, Zach. Terry has been following my blog for a long time and wanted to meet me while we were still in the area. His grandson got a chance to ride in the wagon for about an hour.
Entering the town of Stephens, the Chief of Police fell in behind me and gave me an escort through town. This was greatly appreciated as the shoulders were small in town, and a set of Blue Police Lights or a good diner is about the only thing that will slow down a logging truck. The Chief stopped and visited with us as we were leaving town.
There was nothing much but forest, in the eleven miles between the towns of Stephens and McNeil, so we didn’t find a place to stay until we had 25 miles under our belt. Tonight, we’re staying at the Harris residence and are very comfortably settled in. Our good friend ‘Hickey’ and his daughter, Jackie, stopped by to see us before we traveled out of the area.
This was a nice day of travel. The temperature was very warm. Dee and I were running around without a coat, looking for a palm tree around every corner. We met some great people along the way, and had a very nice place to stay at the end of the day.
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