BTW - My mount is "Grant", retired Percheron from Fort Mead, VA. Was right lead pulling President Ronald Reagan's hearse to Arlington Cemetery as seen in this photo. View attachment 123913
View attachment 132459 Back from ranch work in Colorado. The weather was so nice. Back to 107F heat here in the fever infested lowlands. Can’t wait to get back in October!!!
Out on a little hike across the top of Tom's Creek Falls. View attachment 138298
Now, that is cool! Very smart indeed, sir.My active 1930s military mounted kit
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Cool, I have just attended a lecture by Col John Blashford-Snell on his 50th anniversary of the Blue Nile expediton. He has one of the inflatables he used and told how he went to Avon and how the adapted dingy launches were created and following the expediation down the Nile the sport of white water rafting developed. He used inflatable soccer bladders inside as a secondary method of inflatable. Extra rubber on the bottom of the boat. Although his excitement included being shot at, Nile crocodiles as well as the rapids.
Talking about the fog and following this old highway reminds me of a story (like I really need some reminding to tell a story).
Growing up, I heard many times the story about the family coming off the mountain in the fog. This took place in the early 1930s, when my Dad was just a boy. The family had been to Asheville in their 1927 Oldsmobile. Coming home down NC 10 (the main highway at the time), it was so foggy that they couldn't see the road. My Maw got out of the car, lit a kerosene lantern that they always had with them in case of emergencies (I still have that same lantern by the way), and walked along in front of the car guiding them all the way off the mountain. My Dad says he only remembered going to sleep in the back seat of the car, but my aunt Hazel (who was the driver at the time) always shuddered when that story was told. Hazel said she was never so scared in her life as when she had to drive that old '27 Olds off the mountain in the fog. She often said she could have seen just as easily if she closed her eyes, and even with Maw walking along in front with a lantern it was all she could do to see the light. Even Maw said she didn't know from one step to the next if she was going to walk off the side of the road or not. Now, that's some thick fog!
While there was some fog today, it was nowhere near as bad as it was when Maw had to lead the car off the mountain; however, with each step I took today I could "see" in my mind Maw walking on before me. Maw was always the one to "lead the way", be it off a fog-covered mountain or just through life in general.