It's all up to Walter now

Mr. H.'s stable manager and racehorse trainer, Jamie R., had a look at Walter. After watching Walter move he immediately pinpointed the problem, having me run my fingers along the small swollen area on his upper hip that I had missed, and showing me the slight dip to the right with each step. Jamie said it was an injury to the ligament, and should heal completely with time - lots of time. Like maybe six months or more of pasture boarding time when we get home, letting Mother Nature do her work.

Until then, he said, riding Walter won't make the injury any worse. There's no risk of causing permanent damage. It just won't start healing until Walter stops working. So my question was - what about pain? Can I keep him comfortable?

There was no easy answer. Jamie's informed opinion was that if I kept as much weight as possible off Walter's loins and didn't ride him on any steep grades, and kept the mileage per day down, my strong little mule might do fine. But that I should carry some bute powder (equine pain meds) and if he didn't do fine, give him some every morning and give him aloe vera juice to prevent ulcers.

Well... with all due respect (and Jamie definitely earned my respect), if it turns out Walter can't be ridden without causing him pain, I won't ride him. I'll find someone to haul us home from wherever we are. As of right now, there's no way to tell until we get back on the road. I do know he's been doing fine on the days when good Samaritans hauled the packs ahead for us. He even made 17 miles one packless day, with no sign of any soreness. So it's definitely the weight of the rear saddlebags on the injured ligament that's the problem.

Here's the current plan:

Kelly H. generously offered to haul us over the Caprock to Silverton, TX, and I accepted. The Caprock is a hundred-mile-long steep and beautiful canyon between here and Silverton, part of which is a state park. With his injury, there's no way Walter could climb that rise right now.

Once in Silverton, it's flat all the way to Clovis, NM, about 115 miles as the crow flies. After that, there's a steady upgrade and then mountains. We'll end our ride in Clovis.

If anybody reading this knows of someone who could haul us from Clovis to Tucson around the end of September, please contact me: phone 520 403 four 0 four 2. Or email pentimental (at) yahoo (dot) com. Thank you!


In the meantime, I've managed to dump another 8 pounds of stuff. There are some things I got rid of only knowing this last push is for a few weeks at most. Including - the ultimate sacrifice - my stove and sterno.

Never mind giving up hot meals... no stove = *gasp*... no coffee!!

Well, no hot coffee. I'm keeping my bag of instant and the tin cup. I'll just pour powder into room-temp water every morning. Only a few weeks... only a few weeks...

And the H.'s bought foam padding to try under the saddlebags. I loaded Walter with his lighter, padded packs this afternoon and rode him about a quarter mile. He seemed to do fine; no protests or lagging. Hips felt okay. We'll just have to see how it goes tomorrow. Please wish us luck on this final leg of the journey, and as always, thank you for following the ride!