Yogi Bear and Horses

The last campground we stayed at before arriving in Maryland was Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Emporia, NC. We were very pleased with how clean everything was and how friendly the staff and even the other campers were. I think we might stay exclusively at these campgrounds if possible on our travels.

        

We arrived at the Graham Equestrian Center in Glen Arm Maryland later in the evening. We were advised by almost everyone we talked to NOT to drive through Washington, DC during rush hour. We stopped in Dale City on the south side of DC and spent three hours hanging out at a mall there until the traffic died down enough for us to go.  We had to go through a freaky little narrow tunnel that was way too long for me AND went underneath a body of water. It was pretty recent that the earthquake hit the Baltimore area so I was really trying not the think of any potential weaknesses that might have developed in the tunnel as a result of the quake. I’m not too keen on confined spaces anyways so that trip through the tunnel was pretty tense for me. The picture below is of the tunnel. It’s obviously not a good picture, but hopefully you can get an idea of how narrow it was – and our bus is pretty wide.

                                 

The Graham Equestrian Center is a beautiful ranch located in the Gunpowder Falls State Park. It’s a nonprofit ranch and has 22 horses that roam, run, and play on about 22 fenced acres – along with a bunch of deer. We went for a hike in the park our first day here to do a little exploring and it was so beautiful.

 

This picture was shot as we were coming out of the forest back onto the ranch.

                          

After the hike we spent the day meeting horses and watching them play.

Ginny showed us her horse Storm’s sweet spot (where he liked to be scratched.)

                         

The next day Jadyn and I went down to the lower pasture to say good morning to some horses, then we went to help daddy make an oval pen round.

         

We saw a little baby snake and a dead hummingbird that had gotten trapped in a building and I guess starved. He was still very beautiful.

               Jadyn had fun helping us any way she could. :o)

Joe and Jadyn relaxed under a tree and played while I made dinner for everyone.

                                 

And while I was making dinner I looked up from where I was standing cutting vegetables and saw a family of deer out the window. That was the coolest thing for me. :o)

                        

I am so thankful to be here experiencing this now! Soon we are going to take a trip to DC and check out the sites. That will be fun! Until then, I’ll post some more of what we are doing here.