Glenn and I had originally hoped to ride horses approx. 500 miles from Los Adaes in Western Louisiana to the border with Mexico, following the old Spanish missionary trail called El Camino Real de los Tejas. However, after a couple of days’ car-bound recce of the Louisiana/ North Texas section of the trail, our suspicions materialised and it became apparent that it hadn’t been a trail for many decades and that we’d have to do a lot of the riding along the grass verge at the side of 4-6 lane highways, which didn’t sound like much fun.
Nonetheless, we found a great horse riding and care trainer near Manor, outside of Austin (Stephanie), started to get our saddle legs and to really enjoy the hanging out with the horses and riding. However, after a couple of weeks of patient training from Stephanie, we realised that, through no fault whatsoever of Stephanie’s, we had little hope of learning what we needed to know in our six remaining weeks in Austin and that, while we might get lucky, we might also end up in wheelchairs. We were also concerned about the cost involved in buying horses, getting them and us kitted out, watering and feeding them and a very long etcetera… so we started to look at alternatives…
After ruling out mountain biking the Appalachian Trail (we wouldn’t finish in time for my Christmas flight home), rollerblading the Big Sur (no, not really) and a variety of other hair-brained plans, we settled on the still crazy, but a lot less crazy plan of hiking the Arizona Trail.
And, yes, despite endless delays, we do still hope to one day get to drive around the world. Watch this space…
What a brilliant website! We look forward to hearing about the progress of your hike. Some distance! We wish you all success.
Peter and Pam
I just saw the website and it is awesome. We are thinking about you both. Have fun and be safe. I am heading home from Vegas
Good luck to you both we shall be watching your progress from here on dartmoor
Rod & Lis
I’m enjoying the trip from affar. Watch for flash floods, the weather channel showed lots of rain out your way. I miss the horn toads.
Love big bro John