Name: Book Club Hike: Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer
Start: 2024-11-15T09:00:00-08:00
End: 2024-11-15T11:00:00-08:00

Please use the written directions for this hike. The link has taken people on a way that doesn't get you to the trailhead anymore.

Come join our book club. Or just come for the hike.
We are a very simple book club as we just walk, talk! During the hike we will break into small groups to give us all a chance to hear and give input. We all read the book before the hike and then hike as we discuss it. Anyone that didn't read the book can listen in or walk with the others that didn't read the book.

Foothill Regional Park in east Windsor is a 211-acre wilderness park in the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains. The park features thick oak woodlands, rolling hillsides, ridge-top views of northern Sonoma County, three ponds for bass and bluegill fishing, grassy meadows, and spring wildflowers. Nearly 7 miles of multi-use trails cover varied terrain, offering easy to challenging options for hikers. We will be doing a moderate 3.4 mile loop.

Book: Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer
"Think the next Educated or Wild. Palmer’s memoir of beating the odds to become a horse champion is an inspiring saga of perseverance—and a classic underdog tale." —Entertainment Weekly

At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior–Palmer discovered a website devoted to “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”―an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty–five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her.

Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that re–creates the horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan. Many fail to finish. Prior–Palmer had no formal training. She was driven by her own restlessness, stubbornness, and a lifelong love of horses. She raced for ten days through extreme heat and terrifying storms, catching a few hours of sleep where she could at the homes of nomadic families. Battling bouts of illness and dehydration, exhaustion and bruising falls, she decided she had nothing to lose. Each dawn she rode out again on a fresh horse, scrambling up mountains, swimming through rivers, crossing woodlands and wetlands, arid dunes and open steppe, as American television crews chased her in their jeeps.

Told with terrific suspense and style, in a voice full of poetry and soul, Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

"Taking off on a horse into the Mongolian Steppe sounds like the bracing inverse to an overpopulated, busy urban life, but having the skills and grit to pull it off is another thing entirely. . . . Lara Prior–Palmer attempted the Mongol Derby not really knowing what she was getting into; she ended it knowing much more about herself, and a race champion besides." ―Estelle Tang, Ell
Directions:
At Exit 498 from Hwy 101, head right on the ramp for Old Redwood Hwy toward Central Windsor
Turn right onto Old Redwood Hwy and after 1/2 mile turn left onto Hembree lane. Drive for 1.3 miles and see the park entrance

As always: Give yourself time to find the trailhead so that you arrive prior to the scheduled time. That is the time we head out on the trail. It would be disappointing to miss having you on the hike due to late arrival. Please always check your email the night before just in case there are any necessary adjustments.

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Book Club Hike: Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer

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Book Club Hike: Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer

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