Well let's see here, my flight was absurdly long.  I started out flying from San Jose to Denver.  This really doesn't get you closer to the UAE.  I made the mistake of mentioning the San Jose airport and I think that organizer thought they were doing me a favor by flying me from there versus San Francisco.  So instead of me driving 45 min to San Fran, I flew 2 1/2  hours to Denver and then had a 3 hour lay over to fly to Europe.  I walked around Denver switched my watch by an hour and had a salad.  This added 5 hours to my lovely trip.  Then I got on my flight to Frankfurt.  This was a 10:35 flight.  I switched my watch by 8 hours and walked around all of the Duty Free shopping there was to see and waited out my 3 hour lay over.  Then I boarded my final leg to Dubai.  This was a 5:55 flight.  I changed my watch by 3 more hours and was there.  I landed at 11:55 pm.  I took off on the 5th of Feb at 11 am and landed the 6th at 11:55 pm.  Very cool time warp. 

Once I was through passport control, which took about an hour, I went to baggage.  After finding my bags, which were the last two to appear (at least they appeared though, right?) I went out to look for a person holding my name on a sign.  I looked and then looked and then realized there wasn't a sign...shit.  I had emailed the person in charge of our travel arrangements 5 times leading up to this trip to get the hotel info and never had gotten any data.  Luckily at one point Jeremy had mentioned the hotel name to me and I was familiar with the hotel from a previous trip.  I called the hotel to see what was happening and they informed me that I should take a cab and that it would be paid by the hotel.  Cool.  I quickly got into a cab.  It was now past 1 am.

I told the cab where to go and he drove off with certainty, for about an hour.  Then he asked me where we were going.  I wanted to kill him.  He was very cheerful and I was very tired.  I told him again and he said he would call a friend to get directions.  I was thinking, why not call the hotel?  Or better yet why not enter the address into the shiney new GPS that he had?  We drove for a long time.  He pulled over three times and flagged down random drivers to ask if they knew where the hotel was.  Very disturbing at this hour.

I finally made it to the hotel after 2:30 am.  The trip wasn't long until I landed!  To think that they could have flown me into Abu Dhabi, which is 15 min from the hotel, but that would have ruined the fun. Oh and I wasn't the only one having fun, poor Erin Rapp got to the hotel after 5:30 am from Dubai as well!

Jeremy ran this morning while I walked Smitty.  I really thought that I would soak in the warm sun here, it rained today!!  We saw two cars with broken axles from sliding out and hitting curbs!

After lunch we went back to the barn (the barn is open for certain hours in the am, then closes and reopens in the afternoon.) and Jeremy and Ellen rode.  Erin and I practiced handing off bottles to them.  The hardest part was chasing down the bottle after the hand off as the wind was so strong.  We ran around after bottles laughing.  This is an extremely funny process if you haven't slept!

We went to the hotel and went in the Very hot, hot tub and then waited for dinner.  Ellen, Erin, Jeremy and I ate (well, sort of, Jeremy is slimming down to be closer to the 165 weight minimum and he has lost about 15 pounds since arriving here, so he didn't eat much) and now it is time for sleep.

Heather

So it is, that we are once again on our way to the President's Cup.  Jeremy and Sir Smith left on Jan 28th.  I drove them and the other USA horse SA Belshazaar (SP?) aka Zar as well. 

We left at 1 am Thursday morning to get to LAX by 8 am.  Zar had been with us for a couple of days so he made the trip down with us as his owners, Jeremy Olson and Ellen Rapp, are currently living in Qatar training endurance horses.

The horses both traveled well and made it, with a very tired Jeremy, to Amsterdam.  The horses stayed at the horse hotel on the out skirts of Amsterdam.  They had a 3 day wait there before they would ship to another airport some where in the NL to get on to a private charter with the other foreign horses to continue on to the UAE.  It was snowing in Amsterdam so Jeremy could only ride them in the indoor arena.  Poor Jeremy was all alone there with out any other US rider for company.

Jeremy flew to the UAE on Jan 31.  The horses left the horse hotel on the 31st and stayed god knows where before they were to fly out on the 1st.  Jeremy was waiting in the UAE for the horses arrival and came to find out that one of the foreign horses had bad paperwork and that delayed the whole load by a day and a half!!  When Smitty did arrive he was very sucked up and extremely thirsty.  He drank two five gallon buckets with ease.  Bummer!!  Jeremy had fluids run on both USA horses.

Smitty and Zar are doing great.  They have both been ridden and have had blood work done and they look fine.  Ellen and Jeremy R. are doing well too. 

It is a bit odd but for some reason our horses are in Quarantine with the European horses this time.  When the riders want to ride they are all supposed to go out as one group, that is all European horses and USA horses.  They  are all to agree on a pace, distance etc.  As you can imagine that is not happening.  Jeremy said that the quarantine supervisors that follow the riders have been yelling at the riders and the riders are "deaf" to it.  Can you blame them?
 
Any how, I am on my lay over and I need to get going.  I will try to keep this as current as possible.
Heather

The Git R Done Special was put together to help FEI riders get themselves and their horses qualified for upcoming FEI races.  We decided to take 5 horses down for the ride to get the horses through various levels of their qualifications.

On Thursday we drove down to Ridgecrest and settled in all of the horses.  Then we went out to dinner with the Donley's (friends and owners of My Mamselle).  It was their son, JJ's birthday earlier in the week and Jeremy's birthday would happen the day of the race so we celebrated their birthdays over dinner.  It was very enjoyable.

We returned to camp and headed to bed.  Jeremy and I enjoyed an Eddie Murphy stand up act on our laptop before falling asleep.  Pretty funny.

On Friday Jeremy woke up and went for a run and glued on boots to our horses hooves while I ran into town to get a new headlamp.  It seems that all of our high powered ones had either died or disappeared.  I also went to Starbucks because I could:)

After I returned we meet up with Lani.  She is the number one ranked South African rider at the moment she is also ranked number 2 on the FEI World Rider Ranking list.  Lani would be riding Stratagem aka Strut on the 75.  We went out on a pre ride so that she could get to
 know him better.  Also on the pre ride were: Maddy riding Carnivalle, Jeremy on Makazin, Tim on A Kutt Above and myself on Ssamiam. 

After the pre ride we continued to get our crew gear together and then we went to vet in.  All of the horses looked great.  After weighing in and finishing up on the crew gear we all headed to town for another birthday dinner.  Tim was not there for the Thursday dinner and as he is Jeremy's twin it was his birthday too.

We had a great sushi dinner and then went back for the ride meeting.

Saturday we all woke up and got on our horses.  All of the distances were starting at the same time.  It was nice because I was riding the 100 and this way I could ride with Jeremy and Lani for the first 75 miles as they were on the 75.  Tim and Maddy were doing the 50.

The day flew by.  Holly, my sister, and Megan Doyle were our awesome crew.  They were busy to say the least!  With 5 horses coming and going they were on their toes.  The ride was two 12.5 mile loops that you kept repeating.  They didn't have much time between horses.  Holly did have time however to make a large drawing in the sand at one of the crew points that read "Happy Birthday Jeremy and Tim".

After Jeremy and Lani finished Sam had to go out alone for the last 25 miles.  I have never ridden Sam at night before.  He was really confused by the headlamp.  At one point my hand blocked the light for a moment and it made a shadow that Sam physically jumped over!  Another time he tucked up and jumped over a dark spot, he wasn't taking any chances!  Then we had to ride along the highway and the headlights coming and going made it so hard to see.  I wouldn't have been able to jog with that kind of light changing all the time.  Sam did great and just kept trotting.

At the end of the day My Mamselle won the 50 with JJ, Carnivalle was 6th with Best Condition on the 50 for AERC and FEI, Kutt was 7th.  This was great because both Kutt and Carnivalle now have their CEI* completed.

Makazin won the 75 FEI and AERC and won Best Condition on both as well, Strut was 3rd on the 75.

Sam won the FEI and AERC 100.  He also has his COC now, he did the 100 in 9:57, and this was his first 100.

Needless to say we were very happy with our weekend.

We are driving home now, heading into the rain.  Darn.  Our next adventure will be going to the President's Cup in the UAE.  Jeremy has been invited to compete on Sir Smith.  The race is on Feb 13th.  He and Smitty will leave on the 27th of this month.  I will go on Feb 5th.  See you all soon.
Heather

We went to Death Valley once again.  We haven't been in a few years, really ever since the ride was held in the windy dust bowl.  This year was really great.  The camp has changed and the weather was chilly but dry. 

Jeremy and I had a goal to qualify the two newest horses so that they could do the Git R Done FEI 50 in Jan.  The two horses were: Carnivalle, (who belongs to our friend and client, Deborah Reich) and A Kutt Above.  Carnivalle needed to do 2 days and Kutt needed 3, since he had never done any endurance before. 

Since I would be potentially doing 3 days Jeremy opted to bring Bey along so that he could ride him on the day he wasn't riding  Carnivalle.

The drive down was really uneventful, although highway 5 had all sorts of Christmas traffic on it and we had to take 99 instead.  We got to camp around 4 pm and got set up.  It was nice to see old friends.  Two of our friends were there that we didn't expect to see (they live in Washington), Dennis and Sue Summers.  It was really great to get to hang out and catch up with them.

On day one Jeremy rode Carnivalle and I rode Kutt.  The trail took us through an old mining town called Johansberg (SP?).  The ride photographer was shooting pictures in front of the old Opera house there.  Jeremy and I were riding in knee high, stripped, Christmas socks, so our picture should be festive.

Lunch was out in the desert.  Ann had hot soup for all of the riders out there, which was nice since it was so chilly outside.  Leaving lunch we realized that we were near the top ten.  We had a fun ride into camp and cantered along effortlessly.  We ended up 4th and 5th.  Our friend Dennis won.  At the ride meeting it was announced that Carnivalle had won BC!  It was her first 50 so that was really cool.

Day two was cold as well.  Jeremy was on Carnivalle again and I was on Kutt.  We rode a loop back to camp for lunch.  This is when we cleaned up our camp so that after the ride we could pack up and drive to Balarat for the next camp site.  After lunch we rode a trail that was cross country for miles and miles.  The only thing that had been over that section of desert was Dave's motorcycle.  It made for a bit of fun in the steering department as neither of our horses had any experience in weaving and dodging through brush.  The horses both thought they knew where to go which made for a lot of swerving as they would decide to follow last minute instructions from their drivers.  By the end of it they were really good at it.  I did have to shorten my stirrups for this however!

We ended up 4th and 5th again.   Dennis won again on a different horse.  This time it was Kutt's turn for BC!  This was his second endurance ride ever, the day before being his first.  Cool!

After we finished we packed up and drove to Balarat.  It is a mining ghost town.  We set up and then hung out with Dennis and Sue.

Day three Jeremy rode Bey and I took Kutt out for his final day.  We rode with Sue almost the entire way.  On this first half of the ride we saw three bands of wild Burros.   Lunch was out on top of a hill/mountain.  Hot soup waiting once again.  It was really cold at this spot.

On the way in it was rocky for a long while.  We were all walking and a few 25 milers caught up with us.  Jeremy pulled off to use a bush.  When we got back on trail the other riders, 3 LD riders and 3 50 mile riders, were out of the rocks and we could see them down in the distance.  We could also see the fork where the LD's went right and 50's went left.  Out in the desert we saw a father and son that were on the 50 and we could see Sue galloping along catching up with them.  Jeremy and I decided to catch up too. 

Bey and Kutt galloped along like the wind.  We were going 16 MPH for quite a while before we caught the father and son.  I had been watching my ride time all day.  To qualify Kutt for the FEI ride he needed to do the 50's in a time longer than 5 hours.  I saw that I would be close, so I told Jeremy to go catch up with Sue and that I would pull in behind the father and son.  On the way into camp I spotted a large Coyote, he watched us as we went by.

Sue and Jeremy tied for first and I was 8 minutes back in 3rd.  It was a really fun ride.  I am completely in love with Kutt. 

We were really pleased as we were able to qualify the two horses and we had a lot of fun doing it.  I was really tempted to stay and do the fourth day.  Kutt would just have to finish and he would have been the overall winner!  I had to control myself and look at what our goal was, and that was to get him to the Git R Done FEI 50 which is on Jan 16th.  

We are currently driving home.  All three horses are happy and will love to get back into their pasture.

Heather

In our usual crazy over achiever style we went all out and brought the herd down to Desert Gold for Thanksgiving.  When we entered this ride we over looked the fact that we had overbooked ourselves.  The ride is a three day, starting the Friday after Thanksgiving, going through Sunday.  One problem... we are flying to Cancun, Mexico on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn.  So we changed our entries to only Friday and Saturday. 

We took 7 horses (8 if you count Jeff's horse), for 7 riders and headed south for the ride.  It is only a little over an hour drive.  We arrived and set up all of the horses with feed and water, which is a longer process with that many horses.  Then after organizing everyone's tack we relaxed and then went out for a short pre-ride. 

Jeremy and Jeff also went bike riding.  Maryben asked what in the hell they were doing when she saw them riding and then they suddenly jumped off their bikes, picked them up and started running up a hill.  I told her that they do cycle cross and she asked if I said psycho cross.

There was a plentiful potluck on Thanksgiving at the ride.  It was really nice eating by the fire that was going and sitting around with friends while enjoying some good turkey.

On Friday morning bright and early Jeff arrived from his turkey night that he had spent at his house and Maddy arrived as well as she had had her turkey elsewhere too.

Holly (my sister), Hillary Graham, Tim (Jeremy's brother) and Chris (Tim's girlfriend) all had slept at the ride. 

Jeremy rode Smitty both days.  He won and got BC on the first day.  He also won (a three way tie between he, Jeff and I) the second day and I am not sure who won BC yet as we are driving home right now and the awards haven't happened yet.

Jeff rode Breeze the first two days and is staying for a third.  He was 2nd on day one and tied for first on day 2.

Tim rode Rising Heat on day one and on day two Razin had scratches and was pulled at lunch:(

Chris rode Makazin on both days and was mid pack on day one and 4th on day 2.

Holly rode Sam on the two LD's and he was great she said.

Maddy rode Carnivalle (a clients horse) with Holly.  It was Carnivalle's first time at an endurance ride.

Hillary rode Bey for half of the LD on day one but they didn't get along so well so that was far enough.

I rode Strut on day one and was 6th.  On day two I rode Bey and tied for first.

On a side note My Mamselle was there with her new owners and finished 3rd on day one.  It was a family affair because Smitty, Breeze and Mya were 1st, 2nd and 3rd and they all have the same sire.

On Friday night we went to a Korean BB-Q restaurant then went to the meeting and awards.  There were S'mores after the awards and ride meeting.  I thought that was awesome!!  The completion awards were your ride picture, that was really nice. 

In all we had a lot of fun.  The weather wasn't the best on Friday but it sure was perfect today, Saturday.  After we had camp cleaned up squeaky clean ( a huge project with all of those horses!!)  we all went to Denny's to get some food before driving home.  It was fun to get the wrap up on the weekend over some food.  When we were done we all wished Jeff good luck for the third day and headed home.

Well I am going to go so I can do our last minute things before we fly out in the morning:)
Heather

On Friday morning my friend Megan and I loaded up Strut and Tanner and headed to the Lake Oroville Vista Endurance (aka LOVE Ride) ride.  Our drive was very uneventful.  We did not take the Big Slow Rig, instead we took the Ford and were able to hit all the speed limits.  Our first order of business was to stop at the local Starbucks, all good trips start with good java.  Before you knew it we were in the lovely town of Oroville. 

The base camp is in a flat gravel parking lot and it was already really getting full and it was only 2pm.  We parked for a quick escape as we were planning to leave right after the race and head to my friend Hillorie's house.  After we got everything all set up and packed up our crew bags we went for a preride.  I remember in the past that the end of the race was a bit confusing.  No problems with it now.

After our ride I went for a run.  I ended up running about 2 1/2 miles.   Then it was off to the meeting and lights out.  It's funny how you get sleepier when it gets dark earlier.

Saturday morning we got up earlier than normal because at this ride you ride across a damn then over railroad tracks and up a hill and then you have reached the starting line.  We had just crossed the tracks in the pitch black, which by the way looks way more scary to a horse when a flashlight is being waved over them, when we heard the train coming.  We were very relieved that we would not be near the train as it rumbled by.  It was intimidating enough just hearing it.

As we warmed up Megan and I parted ways as she planned on going a little slower on her horse.  Tanner did not even care.  After they said go Strut was a bit rambunctious for the first few minutes and then he settled in nicely.  The day went by really uneventfully and we ended up 3rd with reserve BC.  Tanner was 5th.  My throat was pretty sore though as I had been riding with someone who could not hear very well and I found myself yelling a lot.

We cleaned up camp quickly and headed to Vacaville, from one Ville to the next!  Hillorie had a pasture for us to turn Tanner and Strut out in.
Strut has got to be the coolest stallion ever that you can load him up with a strange gelding go to a race and then next day turn them out together.  Very cool guy. 

We showered and headed to Chevy's to have an exhausted girls night out.  The next day I woke up feeling really crappy.  We had breakfast with Hillorie said hi to all of her horses and headed out.  By the time I got home  it was all I could do to unwrap Strut and turn him out and head home.  I have been in bed ever since, it is now Tuesday night and I have not left my bed.

Jeremy's trip went well, he learned a lot and came home on Saturday.
Heather

We were going to do the Malibu Ride and take a horse for a client to try out but on Wednesday night we got word that it was canceled.  Our client lives in S. Cal so the other option was Git R done.  We made the decision to go and packed up Thursday and drove down on Friday.  Michelle Roush was very accomadating to let us enter so last minute.

On Friday we pulled in around 2 pm.  We set up camp, got our crew bag ready and checked in.  Very uneventful.  Our friends/clients, Karin, Ron and JJ Donley arrived around 4 pm.  While they were getting set up Jeremy took Bey for a pre ride.  He had been pinned on the trailer ride and had had a rough day and Jeremy wanted to make sure everything was alright for Saturdays ride. 

Bey was perfect and really ready.  After we all vetted through we headed to the lovely town of Ridgecrest for a nice dinner.  We ate at Tokyo House.  Jeremy and I had some good sushi while the Donley's enjoyed steak and salmon.  JJ & Karin got curious as to how eel tasted so they did get brave and tried one of our rolls.

 We headed back to the ride after dinner for the ride briefing.  During the briefing we had the usual desert Tortoise lecture as well as the normal trail, vet, etc data.  This time the tortoise lady brought two live tortoises.  They were really tiny.  The one that was a year old was only the size of the palm of your hand!  I guess they can live 100's of years and that is how you get the big ones:)

Karin and her son JJ were doing the 30 to try out My Mamselle, aka Mya.  Jeremy and I were doing the 50 on Bey and Makazin (I rode Makazin).  The ride started at 7 am.  It was Halloween so I was in my costume.  My friend Maddy lent me a Tinkerbell costume with wings and all.  It was too cold to have the wings on the first loop (which was a bummer as I missed out on having my picture taken with the wings on, Rene did get one for me after the ride though) but I put them on for the rest of the ride after that.  They even flapped when I cantered!  Jeremy sported some tall striped orange socks and away we rode.  There were many other riders in costume as well.  There was a bumble bee, a princess warrior, a spider, a pink princess and many more.  There was a guy at vet check one who said that someone had complemented him on his costume.  He was shocked as he was not wearing a costume, just his normal attire!!  Maybe some of us dress up more than others.

Karin and JJ arrived into the first vet check just ahead of us.  All of the horses looked great.  All of the riders were having fun too.  This is when the day started to really heat up.  It turned out to be around 80 degrees!  Very warm for fuzzy horses.  It was at this point that someone asked me how many horses we had.  I had answered that we had 12 in endurance training and Ron quickly told me that it was actually only 11.  (They really liked Mya!)

The day flew by and Jeremy and I had fun riding together.  Bey and Makazin have a very similar pace at the canter so they were well matched. 

The trail was deep with sand in some places and single track in others.  The hissing, burrowing Owls were not out so it was a little less spooky than usual.  Not a tortoise in sight.

By the end of day one Karin and JJ were first and second on the 30 and Jeremy and I tied on the 50.  (They didn't allow the tie so my cute husband gave me the win.)

We hung out after the ride and went into town and got a Starbucks and checked movie times.  Nothing was showing at the right time, darn.  We headed back to the ride for dinner and the awards.

 Makazin won the high vet score and Best Condition.  I was extremely happy with that.  The awards for First and BC were cool hand crafted, iron work, powder coated cut outs of a horse with the ride name on it.  It was art work for sure, very nice.  The ride meeting followed the awards and we were all reminded to change our clocks back that night.  This was a little concerning as our alarm clock is one that sets itself, and our cell phones set themselves as well.  I did manually set my watch alarm, which I have never used before and we hoped for the best.  Luckily all of the "self setting" devices did their jobs and it was not an issue.

Day 2 Jeremy Rode Smitty and I opted to crew.  I did the early AM feeding and then slept in.  Karin, Ron and JJ packed up and headed out with their new horse Mya.  Best of luck to their future success. 

Smitty breezed into the first vet check and was on his own all day long. 

Leaving the last vet check I drove out along the road that was parallel to the trail.  I had some fun with our video camera and got some footage of Smitty and Jeremy.  Good times.

It was about 85 degrees today.  Really hot.  Smitty won by a large margin.  He also won Best Condition. 

We relaxed and got packed up.  After a few hours we loaded up and are currently on the road home.  It was a great weekend. 

Next weekend I am off to Lake Orroville and Jeremy is off to Pennsylvania for a hoof care clinic.  See you all soon.
Heather

On the way home from our lovely Kentucky adventure we decided to go to the Lake Sonoma 50.  Skip was feeling inspired as well, so he wanted to ride too.  Skip hadn't been riding hardly at all lately.  His last race was in 2003.  He decided to come out and train a bit.  On Wednesday Skip came out to ride and see if he really wanted to go through with the race.  He rode again on Thursday and he was "ready".  

We are a really bad influence at our barn.  On Thursday we told two of our other riders that we were going to Sonoma and before you knew it there were 5 of us going.  Nothing like being flexible.  Gotta love endurance riders.

Friday we loaded up all 5 horses.  Our friend Carol had her horse Freebie and Jeff's horse Breeze in her trailer and Jeremy and I took Bey, Strut and Razin in our trailer.  Jeremy was riding Bey, I was riding Razin and Skip was on the stud, Strut.  Skip and Jeff drove up later in the afternoon. 

Carol followed us up.  We drove our extra speedy big truck that we had just spent so much quality time in earlier in the week.  We did play hell trying to get to a decent diesel station on the way to the ride.  Oh well.

When we got to the ride we found parking relatively easily considering how tight the parking is.  We set up, then we checked in.  Jennifer, the ride manager is a fellow mudder from our Kentucky trip.  I don't think she got to recover from her trip either as she had to organize this race.  No rest for the wicked, us included. :)

We vetted all 5 horses in and then Jeremy and Carol went out for a ride.  I got our crew stuff ready while they were out.  When they returned Skip and Jeff arrived. 

We all went to the ride meeting where there were Halloween cupcakes.  Yummy.  The big deal at the ride meeting was that there was someone coming from the state department to be there for drug testing by means of drawing blood.  Apparently there was a lot of concern about this as the person was just there to watch but that the ride vets would have to take time out to do all the actual work of the draw and filling out the paperwork.

After the ride meeting our "Den Mother" (Carol) had brought a delicious dinner for all of us to share.  Very yummy with extra garlicky, garlic butter for the bread, that she had made herself:)  Carol takes the best care of us, we love her.

That night the weather was really perfect and you could see all of the stars.  Why did we ever leave California for Kentucky?

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early.  Carol had also brought us a great breakfast of quiche and fresh orange juice.  After all of the good food and getting horses saddled, etc. it was time to get on with the ride.

I said goodbye to Jeremy, Jeff and Carol.  Skip and I were going to be riding slower as it was Razin's third 50 and Strut's first Heavyweight.  Razin handled himself very well.  He is really coming along nicely.  Strut was his normal wonderful self as well.  Skip and he were the studs together.

On the first loop there is an out and back that you pick up an "item" to prove that you have been down to the turn around point.  You also get a piece of candy from a "witch" in a purple hat.  I was reaching for the candy when Razin did a full body shake and I ended doing a party foul and dumping the whole candy "bowl" (a helmet) over.  Darn, I didn't need the candy any way, it was a sign. 

On our way back from the turn around a friend of ours, Steve Lenheim was offering to sell his "item" to riders coming out to the turn around.

The first vet check was a breeze.   We had a 30 min hold and then we were off again to the lunch stop.  The trail was really fun.  It is hilly and windy on a nice single track.  Very cool on a handy horse.  It did seem like the trail had been cleared to the height of a 15 hand horse.  Not tall enough for the 15.3 and 16 hand horses we were on:)  Lots to keep you alert.

Lunch was nice.  The check had been moved a little closer as there is now a horse camp with troughs and a good place for a vet check to be.   Both horses were good to continue.  As we arrived to the check Jeremy and Jeff were just leaving.  Carol was about 10-15 min behind them.

Razin didn't eat as well as he could have and has earned himself a free round trip ticket to a multiday ride... lucky.

It was a pretty warm day on horses with their new winter coats coming in.  Our two, Strut and Razin were definitely feeling the warmth.  The trail was more scenic then I remembered it being. 

We finished around 2:45 or so.  We aren't sure but Skip and I might have been in the top twenty.  Both horses vetted through without a hitch.  We found out that Jeremy had come in 3rd and had won Best Condition and Jeff was 4th.  Carol was tied for 6th but there were no ties allowed so she took 7th.  Another great day!  Jennifer and her family did another terrific job putting this ride on, especially when you consider that a lot of them were in Kentucky last week!

We got a trailer ride back to base camp (you finish a few miles from camp).  This is when we made up our story to tell Jeremy (he didn't know he had won BC yet).  When we got to camp we told Jeff and Carol that Strut and Razin had been 9th and 10th and that Strut had won BC!  Jeremy was not in sight though.  It turns out he had a raging fever and was sleeping.  So much for our joke :(  Oh well, it turns out he heard it any how from the trailer window.  He was happy when he found out that he had actually won BC.

We hung out for a few hours and ate a bunch of crap, junk food.  Then we packed up and we are currently driving home as I write this.  We will see how Skip feels by Monday morning!

On Friday I loaded up the four horses and headed to the Lexington airport to pick up Jeremy so that we could start our drive home.   (On the way, there a young boy who was in the back seat of a car and motioning with his hand to honk the horn, you know that pulling motion gesture.  I was so excited that I could actually do what he was asking!  I know a bit pathetic, but it made me smile. )  This is a very small airport so it wasn't too bad to get in there with our rig. 

Jeremy got in and we were off.  Our drive began at 6pm and we drove through the night.  On our drive we called Charisse and Karl from time to time to see how we were all doing.  Sometime in the middle of the night I got a text message from Charisse that was crazy.  I called her and she told me that they had been following a big rig when all of the sudden it swerved violently and then crashed off the road through trees flipping over and twisting to to a halt.  Karl and Charisse pulled over and ran to the rig.  It was so buried in trees that Karl had to move branches away to be able to climb up on the truck to scale the side of it to get to the passenger side window.  He looked in and the driver looked dead.  Then the driver came to and Karl and Charisse waited for emergency crew to arrive.  When they arrived the guy was able to climb out and walk away.  He seemed like maybe he broke some ribs and his left arm was cut up but overall not much damage!  The front tire had blown out and sent the rig out of control.  It was the guys first truck driving accident in 25 years.

We looked for a place to stop in Arkansas.  We found the fairgrounds but it was more like a carnival land that was all locked up and there was no sign of a place to keep horses.  The neighborhood that we were driving through was pretty scary as well so maybe it was for the best.
It wasted about an hour of time and it was already 2 am.

We drove further and with no luck on a stopping point at 4:45 am we pulled over at a rest stop and took a four hour nap.  The horses were getting restless so we woke up and started going again. 

Last night was Saturday night and we found a place to stop in Amarillo Texas.  We stayed at "The Big Texan".  Home of the free 72 oz steak (if you can eat it in an hour, otherwise it is $72). 

There is a horse hotel there as well as a steak house.   We unloaded and took care of the four horses and then waited for our friends Ceci and Jason to arrive so we could all go to dinner.  While we waited we saw the cow statue pictured above.  We also looked through the gift shop where they have cowboy everything as well as a Rattlesnake in a cage. 

Jason, Ceci, Jeremy and I had dinner and the steak was awesome.  f you are ever on Hwy 40 take exit 75 and have a good meal.  They also let you use there turnout pens for free for two hours if you are eating in the restaurant.  Good to know.

We slept like the dead and started out again this morning around 9.  The horses are all well.  We are currently in New Mexico and the slow and steady truck is doing exactly that, getting us there slowly.

Before Best Condition there was a light breakfast served to all attending.  That was a nice surprise!  At the Best Condition judging Jan Worthington's horse Golden Lightening look super and he was later awarded Best Condition.  We didn't stay for the awards as we wanted to get cleared out of the barn and headed back to our house with the pastures for the horses.  Jeremy needed to catch a flight to New York to work on some horses and Tim was flying home as well.

I was anxious to get back to the house as we had our two new horses that Lynn had trailered down from Delaware for us there and I had not met them in flesh yet.  I went straight out to see them.  This was the best part of our trip.  I love them both!!  We got an 8 year old grey gelding named A Kutt Above and a 3 year old chestnut gelding named An Honest Crook.  Great horses, I am very happy... finally something exciting from this trip:)

When the whole team made it back to the house we all got things settled and went out for a fun dinner as our final hurrah of this trip.  We had a great time.  On our way home we took the scenic route and had a good laugh.

Finally we all said our good byes and headed off for bed.

This morning at an early hour that I was not conscious for Cheryl, Maddy and Cherry flew out.  A short while later I was awake and Carolyn headed out. 

I went out to the barn to find Karl, Richard, Charisse and Kim stripping out their stalls and getting ready to head out.  I stripped my 4 stalls and said good bye to them and then It was just me and my dogs here.

Around noon Jason and Ceci came to pick up a horse to take to CA.  I helped them load up and they were off too.  About 15 min later Ceci came walking up and asked where the stack of garbage cans were that Skip wanted them to take out to CA.  Damn.  We got the cans and carried them the 1/2 mile to where Jason and Ceci's truck was parked.

Now I am waiting for Jeremy to land tonight at 5:30.  I will go get him with the trailer and horses in tow to begin our return journey in our speedy truck.  Hopefully it is as uneventful as our drive out.