Sorry, I have not had internet until now.  We had to move out of the hotel for the second time right before they decided who would make the team so I have not written since.

Our team which you have probably heard by now is:
Ellen Rapp on Berjo Smoke
Meg Sleeper on Syrocco Harmony
Jan Worthington on Golden Lightening
Heather Reynolds on Ssamiam

Our individual is:
Lindsay Graham on Monk

Alternate:
Deborah Reich on DJB Juniper

We were all on pins and needles to hear who would make it.  After our final trot out for the selectors we were all relieved because at that point we had done all we could and it was now up to the committees to decide.

We were waiting from about 10 am until 4:30 pm.  A long day to say the least.  Then when they did announce the team they did so in alphabetical order and started with Ellen Rapp so poor Lindsay thought she had not been selected, then they announced the individual after that.  She was overwhelmed. 

That night we went out for Mexican and had many pitchers of Margaritas.  Roger Yohe was pouring and he even had the same color shirt on as the wait staff.  As a joke Lindsay told a waiter that it was Roger's birthday and the whole staff came out and plopped a huge sombrero on Roger's head and sang happy birthday very loudly in Spanish.  It was super funny.

The days are now starting to move more quickly.  Today we went to the horse park and got our uniforms and credentials.  It was really fun, this is the best s.w.a.g. (stuff we all get) we have ever gotten!   The jackets are really cool too.  We did not get all of the clothes that we will be getting as some of the things hadn't arrived yet.

We also got our tack that the Distance Depot donated.  It is very classy and nice to look at.  We will look sharp. 

More and more crew are arriving each day.  Today we had a lively bucket brigade and bottle hand off session.  The horses are liking it too I think.  It is warm enough for sure to appreciate the water!

The horses are also starting to get massage work done and they are liking that as well.

I am off to bed.

Heather

Well today was the last day of waiting, sort of.  Tomorrow, sometime between 4 and 5 pm we should know who the 5 riders will be. 

Last night was not a good sleep night.  There is a mouse (there seems to be a personal mouse for each room, they come standard at no additional fee) that keeps visiting us at night.  Last night the mouse was feeling very much at home.  He was crinkling wrappers.  I threw a towel in his direction at one point.  This morning I saw what he was up to.  He had taken the Coconut M&M wrapper and carried into my sheepskin lined boots and shredded it inside the boot,making a super cozy nest.  Bastard.  It was almost cute except for that my boot smelled like mouse!

Today was a bummer for us.  About a week ago Smitty hurt himself somehow either in his stall or in his turn out.  It was a hind end lameness.  We noticed a small lump on his hind end that was never there before.  It is up in the large muscle area of his hamstring. 

Smitty seemed to be doing better day by day and the vet was not too concerned about it so we waited for it to get better.  Jeremy iced, lasored and even took Smitty to the hyperberic chamber two times to try to help it heal up the best we could.

Yesterday the horse looked perfect before, during and after his ride.  It was the first day since it happened that Jeremy was feeling better about it. 

This morning when we trotted Smitty he was just as bad as the day it happened.  Jeremy knew that he could make Smitty sound with warming him up but he also knew it would not be fair to Smitty, the team or himself to do this for our final trot out on Friday morning.  It was very improbable that Smitty would be able to go 100 miles in 10 days looking the way he does.

Jeremy went to Becky and formally withdrew Smitty today.  There is no point in hoping for soundness, making the horse appear sound and then having a very questionable horse at this level, especially at the speed that is needed here.

After this we did our barn chores and headed back to the hotel for our Ariat fitting.  We all had to try on jeans for the opening ceremony uniform.  After this we took off to hang out alone.

We decided to see a movie that Jeremy had been wanting to see, The Sorceror's Apprentice.  Jeremy also was craving ribs so we went to Tony Roma's and had great ribs.

After that we headed back to Shaker Village.  When we got back Dan, the grounds manager was getting ready to go out running.  Instead of sulking in our room Jeremy went with him at the last minute.  I ran down to the barn, literally, and pulled Sam's mane.

While I was at the barn I hung out for a bit with Grace, Michele and Jan.  Then I helped Lindsay and Susie bring in the horses for the night.  I am now back at the hotel getting ready for bed.  Hopefully the mouse doesn't show up tonight.

Keep your fingers crossed for Sam tomorrow.

Above you will see Sam's dinner, now you can see where he gets his goofy side from:)

We have been keeping busy.  This past weekend Jim Bryant came here again and trotted all of the horses.  I think he was happy with the over all group.

On Saturday morning our group was asked to be the guest speakers for the annual Al Khamsa (SP?) convention.  At the last minute the speaker that they originally had could not make it so we became the show.  Their group was very nice.  The club is based on having horses bloodlines that go back to Bedouin blood on all lines of their pedigree, or so I understood it, sorry if I have it wrong.

After our speech about the WEG endurance team we headed out and had brunch at Cracker Barrel.  After we were all fed we headed over to Spy Coast. 

Spy Coast is a hunter jumper barn.  It is a stunning facility.  The barn was immaculate, airy and state of the art.  We all admired the barn.  Spy Coast arranged for the USA team to park our trailers on their property which is great, as it will be the closest possible place for us to park next to the crew area for ride day.  We were also able to view the crew lay out from their property.

While we were there we saw Ivanhoe, Michelle Roush's mount.  Spy Coast is the proud owner of this mare.

On Sunday we were all doing drills with the horses so that they were prepared for any loud or surprising things going past them on ride day.  That was fun, Sam thought it was a good time, running past his friends.

After the drills we headed out for a ride, practicing bottle hand offs and bucket brigade when we returned. 

In the late afternoon we went to the Al Khamsa's annual barn tour and dinner.  This was held at Nancy Bliss's place.  We saw 13 Al Khamsa horses.  It was a fun evening and we couldn't have asked for a more gracious host.

Yesterday was the riders day off.  We all headed off to the Horse Park to see the "Gift of the Desert" Arabian exhibit.  It was really great, there were things in there that were so ancient.  I liked one decorative plaque that was over 4500 years old and it looked almost new, the colors were so vibrant.

We also went to Vonita's office at the USEF building.  We saw the desk that moves our paperwork!  I finally met Shirley Kostka who is Vonita's stunt double when she is away.

On the way back to the barn Lindsay, Suzy, Chris and I went to Sam's Club to get some WEG apparel.  Another day down. 

We only have to wait until this Friday until we know where we stand as far as being a rider or a crew member. 

Well we have moved out of our rooms for the weekend and we are staying in our trailers.  We have been practicing a lot of bullet hand offs on the fly and the horses are getting better.

Yesterday we had a radio interview.  Sam was the sound bite for hooves clopping in the background... his moment of fame.

All of the horses are looking good.  We did have another horse move into the barn, a cart pony.  The good news is that the grounds manager was made aware of our health concerns for our horses and he has put a freeze on any future stall rentals for the rest of our stay.  Thank God, or thank Michelle Roush:)  We also now have big Quarantine signs on the outside paddocks.

Last night we all went to a Mexican restaurant to have dinner and watch football.  It turned out to be Tex Mex.  When we opened the menu we had trouble locating the Mex part.  After looking for a while we found some items.  It was the first time that I had Spanish rice that was white rice with bits of veggies in it.  I almost ordered the "Classic Burrito", thinking that would be Mex for me.  Then I read that it involved eggs and bacon in the burrito and I thought again.

Skip got here last night and he has been handing off bullets today. 

Deborah told us that in her new hotel room, that she went to after Shaker Village, has a rag in the bathroom with a sign that reads something about "Use this rag to clean your gun..."  That is a first.

Later today we have more media training and then tomorrow we are speaking at an Arabian Horse Conference first thing in the morning.  Our team vet also gets in tonight so tomorrow we will be examined again, our horses that is.

Sam has gotten better at the bullet hand offs.  He was getting too smart as he would try to swerve to the left with the person handing water to our right.  I would put left leg on and a tight left rein and at the last possible second, when I would let go with my right hand to grab the bottle he would try to swerve to the right, around the person handing us the water.  It was the like he was saying "What? I did what you said, I went right!"  Damn him.  He can be so goofy.  Today he was cooperating.

It looks like rain today.  I am a bit tired, maybe I will get to take a nap. 

Kingley is progressing as far as becoming more interactive with me.  Yesterday he came to me when I called.  I am sure he was thinking "oh good, my grain person/ groom has arrived".

Heather

Today was pretty tame.  We all met for a 7:30 breakfast at the dining hall of Shaker Village.  There were candles on each table as well as pitchers of juice.  It was a buffet.  Very pleasant, Ellen and my favorite part was the perfectly crispy bacon.  It is rare to find it done the way we like it.

After the breakfast we had a brief meeting and headed to the barn.  We put the first set of horses on the walker.

After the walking, all of the horse/rider combos went one at a time in 15 min increments practicing bullet hand offs.  (This is where you get handed a jug of water to pour on your horse as you fly by on horseback).  That was fun and time well spent.  It was windy so we all got fairly wet.

Jeremy and I rode Sam and Smitty after this.  They were great.  We did a really nice 12 miles at a rapid clip.  They are both looking fabulous!  We bathed them and then headed up to our room to change and go to town.  It was more or less a half day as far as activities go.

Jeremy got a KY haircut.  It was long over do.  It turned out pretty good.  After the haircut we went and fed Kingley.  He is doing good.  After all of this we headed back to the hotel and have been relaxing ever since. 

It is now raining and there is a pretty good thunder storm going through.  Our dog Daisy would hate it as it scares her to death.  Lucky for her she is in sunny CA.

Today we had a few issues with day riders getting too close with our horses.  There was one who let her horse into Monks empty pen to drink from his water bucket and then proceeded to stand on Monk's hay while bathing her horse.  Luckily Lindsay saw all of this and was able to scrub her water bucket and discard the hay before Monk went back in.  Also there are now 3 outside pleasure horses housed in our barn.  I really hope that the USA team doesn't miss the WEG because of the Flu virus.

Any how it is a bit stressful to say the least.  I am now going to go try to relax while watching a movie downstairs on the couch with the team.

Heather

We have now been in Shaker Village for a week.  Almost all of the riders are here.  Meg has not arrived yet but both of her horses have been here and Michelle Roush and her horse arrived yesterday and we got to see Emmit, the ride manager for the World Championship.

Jeremy went straight to work on assembling the Supreme Horse Walker the first day we were here.  There was a problem with the fencing as they had not been arranged for.  Jason Stasuk fixed that problem with a few phone calls.  We are in full operation with the walker going for two sets a day. 

The housing we have is nice.  All riders got a room and each room has a full bathroom.  Jeremy and I got two rooms so Deborah's crew, Emilio is staying in our extra at the moment.  Something we were not expecting is that we are on our own for meals and there isn't a place to make food unless you can cook everything in a microwave and store enough stuff for 14 people in one hotel room size fridge!

The horses are healthy and things are looking good.  All of the people here are getting along well.   The barn is really cool as it is an old Shaker barn.  The only bummer is that there is a trail head right at the barn with ample parking for LOTS of day use riders.  Each day there are at least 10-50 horses coming right in our area on their way to the trails.  No one is checking coggins so I hope that they are healthy horses passing through.

Jim Bryant came here this Saturday and left on Sunday.  He trotted and examined everyone.  That was our first inspection.  Sam and Smitty both looked great.

The last two nights we have had team movie nights.  The first night we watched The Hangover and last night we saw Wedding Crashers.  Very fun.

On our first night here, as a team we went to the brand new local steakhouse.  It is in a beautiful building and the food is good but the service has a bunch of kinks to get worked out.  We happened upon Karioke (SP?) night.

Today we had a day off.  Smitty and Sam were supposed to have a day off too but ended up in the walker.  I might not take next Monday off.

Jeremy and I went to a town to try to get a pad insert for Sam's saddle but they didn't have it and while we were there we took the opportunity to go to Starbucks.  Oh the comfort of familiar goodness.

After we got back Jeremy took a nap and I went and took care of Kingley.  He had a bath and some grain while being groomed, a perfect afternoon for him.

At 4 pm the riders and a few grooms went on a river boat tour.  That was peaceful and pretty.  It lasted an hour.  There were tall rock cliffs that we floated by.  We saw some small fish jumping and a blue heron fly into some trees.  Us adrenaline junkies were talking about rather being on wave runners or a speed boat!  Endurance racers are too fast for a float!

I almost forgot about our dinner at the Golden Corral.  This is a buffet with a lot of options.  We couldn't figure out how they could break even at $10.00 per person.  Dave figured he drank enough sweet tea to make up for that $10. 

Ceci's final plate of food consisted of watermelon, strawberries, a tall mound of gummy bears and M&M's and a slice of peperoni pizza!  To give you a better picture, imagine the watermelon melting the color off of the M&M's and swirling around with all of the above.  Pretty colorful.

We just got back from the barn where the guys were trying to rebuild the wall of the historic barn that a team mates runaway truck had met up with earlier today.  The fun never ends.

I will try to keep up a little better than I have been as I now have better internet service.

On another note congratulations to Stirgess and Roof on completing their third 50 at the Camp Far West ride this weekend.  They were carrying Megan Robinson and Breanna Chamberlin.  Thank you both for getting these guys through.

Heather

On Sunday the 22 of Aug I went to Yosemite and stayed overnight to hike Half Dome with my parents and sisters and some friends.  We hiked on Monday and then drove home that night.  Jeremy had too many horses to shoe so we sadly went without him.  He has done the hike a few times already so it wasn't too horrible for him, although I am sure he would have loved to have gone.

We got back on Monday night around 11:45 pm and then I packed up my bag and got everything ready for my 10 am flight for Tuesday morning.  When our tickets to fly were booked, we booked them round trip from the time trial in Illinois to CA and back.  Originally I was going to go with Jeremy to Deborah Reich's house and then to home.  Unfortunately her dogs got mange from the local fox and I had my ticket changed to go directly home as Merlin was traveling with us.  Because of this, on our return trip Jeremy and I were on two separate flights at different times on different airlines from two different airports.

Tim drove Jeremy to San Francisco for a 7 am departure and my Mom drove me to San Jose for a 10 am departure.  We meet up in Chicago and drove to Jan and Grace's house.  It is about 2 and 1/2 hours from their house.  We landed on the 24th and I have yet to see my baggage... it is the 29th today!  Delta.

Our horses were great when we arrived with the exception of a sunburn on Smitty's nose.  Poor guy, it was bright red and cracked.  It looks a lot better now.  Their weight was both good though and they were in good spirits.

Jeremy put shoes on their front feet and we took them out for a spin.  They are in a great mood.  It also cooled off a great deal since our last trip.  It was dry and cool for the first few days.  It is now hot and humid again, but at least it is cooler than before.

Jeremy and I now have seen the expression "make hay while the sun shines".  Grace has been cutting hay and raking and baling all week.  We helped unload about 6 wagons of hay (about 100 bales per wagon) and loaded them up the elevator into the barn.  An elevator actually looks more like an escalator.  It is a ramp/conveyor belt that has hook/pegs that grab the hay you set on it and it takes the hay up into the barn loft area were a second elevator takes it lengthwise back into the barn.  You adjust where you want to hay to fall from the elevator and then you need people to take the falling hay and stack it.  It is a very hot job and you get covered in hay, which them sticks to your sweaty body.  We were sweaty but it could have been WAY hotter.  We were lucky with the weather really.  Another nice thing is that the bales are 2 string bales, unlike our 3 string bales I can actually lift one of these.

Joe and Michelle made their pond available to us to use and we have been swimming Smitty and Sam everyday.  Smitty has been swimming a lot in his life, Sam has never done it until now.  Sam watched Smitty in disbelief as he disappeared into the water.  He even neighed to him several times.  When it was Sam's turn he went in pretty easily and he was fine.  If he had given us trouble we would have skipped it as we don't want to risk hurting him.  Good thing he didn't know or he may have made a fuss to get out of the work!

Joe and Michelle have a lot of really nice horses too.  They also raise and sell their horses.  I don't know the web address but it is something like sporthorseconcepts.com?  You can find them if you Google it I am sure.

On Thursday night we went to the town of New Diggins for Taco Thursday.  You get two tacos for $1.50.  A great deal.  It is like a biker bar (actually there were two bikes parked in the road and you had to physically steer around them to not hit them) but they do not serve hard liquor.  We had fun eating and hanging out.  Ashley, who is a friend of Jan and Grace came with us as we had all just finished stacking hay.  This place also makes an outrageous assortment of home made desserts.  We had fun with that too.

Today Joe took us out on a fun ride through the community that he helps manage.  It is a country club/ estate neighborhood.  It has golf, tennis, boating, fishing and an equestrian center.  It was pretty out on the trails.  We went 14 miles in the heat.

There is a horse here named Kingley that I thought was cute.  I was talking to Jan about him on our first trip out here.  She had told me that his heart rates were REALLY low.  Jeremy rode him and found out that they were.  He had galloped up a climb on one of those extreme heat days and before he could get off the horse at the barn the heart rate monitor read 46.  We were entertaining the idea of buying him.  Then we thought that we had enough horses so I told a few people about him that I thought would like him.

Jerry Gellespie (SP? Sorry) was here to look at a horse for himself and I mentioned Kingley for Cheryl.  He looked at the horse as I rode him alongside the one he was trying.  After the ride Jerry took his potential horse's HR and it was 60.  Just for fun I told him to take Kingley's.  He listened and then stopped and shook his head and then took it again and then paused, thought about it and said, "God". 

I was now wondering what he had heard.  I asked him what it was and he said 28.  Right then Jeremy was standing behind Kingley where I could see him and he was mouthing to me that we needed to buy this horse.

I called Skip and it was decided to buy Kingley Bay.  No relation to Bey Shah.  He is about 15.1, 9 years old, bay with a blaze and four socks.  Very cute, he actually reminds me a lot of my first fast endurance horse, Tyler.

Jeremy and I went out for a ride on Kingley and Loki.  I rode Kingley and Jeremy rode Loki who was Jan's other horse for the WEG this year.  We were out on a dirt road riding when all of the sudden around the bend came a huge semi truck with a long flat bed came roaring around the bend.  It had an over size load sign on the front of it.  It was big and really loud.  The truck was going about 50 MPH.  There was no way for the driver to stop.  We had no where to go.  The shoulder was too tight for comfort but it was all that we had.  Jeremy quickly put Loki into the bushes and I could see Loki getting really tight and stressed.  It looked like he was going to lose it.  I had enough room to fit between him and the truck so I decided to ask Kingley to keep trotting to avoid both horses from bouncing off each other and ending up under this truck.  Kingley was amazing.  He trotted by and didn't miss a beat.  I could have touched the truck!  As the back end of the truck flew by it bounced and he didn't even flinch! 

All you out there ought to look into Jan and Grace's horses if you are in the market.  There are a lot of choices and they are started right.  This will be our second one from them and the first one (Sam) isn't too shabby:)

Last night we were having culture shock so we decided to head to town and see "people".  Our first stop was Culvers.  Culvers is an ice cream and burger joint that my Mom and sister Hannah had just been talking about during our Half Dome hike.  We don't have them in CA, so we had to try it out.  I had an Oreo ice cream sandwich while Jeremy had a mango smoothie.

We went to the movies and saw "Grown ups" with Adam Sandler.  It was fun.  During the preview there was an ad for Live UFC fighting later that same night at the theater (live in Boston, live stream to the theater).  Jeremy is way into watching that.  He was a wrestler and enjoys the watching the tactics and holds. 

After the movie we went to Red Robbin and had burgers.  Then went to a sporting goods store to get a one piece swimsuit as it is required for where the USA team will be swimming and I do not own one.

After killing enough time we went back to the theater for the UFC fight.  It was 9 pm when it started and ended around 11:45.  I watched a few fights and then flipped up the arm rests lay down and fell asleep and had Jeremy wake me up for the Randy Couture fight.  After the main event we headed back to Jan and Graces.  We got home around 1 am. 

Tonight we go over to Michelle and Joe's for dinner.  It should be really fun as we always have fun hanging out and talking with them. 

So far so good.  We head down for Kentucky on the 31st and arrive on the 1st.  We will take Kingley down to KY with us and board him so we don't have to back track to pick him up. 

 I will keep you posted.

Oh, I almost forgot.  Strut went to a three day ride in Oregon with Scott Sansom and did days 1 and 3.  He won both!  Great job.

Heather

Yesterday it was announced who was in the top ten for the USA World Endurance team.  The top ten riders are: Ellyn Rapp, Michele Roush, Jan Worthington (our host), Meg Sleeper, Melody Blittersdorf, Lindsay Graham, Ceci Stasuik, Deborah Reich (friend and client) and Heather and Jeremy!!!  It was really cool to make it.  Sam and Smitty are both looking great.

It was a billion degrees yesterday and we all were putting up a healthy sweat as the announcements were made.  Then there were discussions of future details and time lines.

When it was all over we drove to Jan and Grace's house and we were really tired.  We ran into Jan at McDonald's and she said that Grace had asked if she should make supper and Jan had told her we would be home too late and then Jan added, " besides we can have popcorn and whiskey when we get home, we need to celebrate somehow."

We did just that.  A first.

Well I have to go take care of the beasts.

Heather

It has finally happened, the time trial is over.  We will find out tomorrow who will be in the top ten.  Smitty and Sam had a great day.  The weather was crazy and the trail was technical.

Loop one was a 17 mile trek through hazy humidity that would fog up your sunglasses, I tried it.  The bugs were crazy, it felt like it was raining on your face but it was just the bugs,  currently my right eye is bloodshot from the bugs landing in it.

We had a 40 min vet check after each loop.  Our next loop cooled off a bit.  The humidity lifted as it was preparing to rain.  The result was that loop 2 was cooler.  We were able to pick it up on loop 2 which was 24 miles. 

Another 40 min hold.  About 5 min before I was out, it let loose.  There was so much rain that it was crazy.  The thunder and lightning were there as well.  I reluctantly came out from under my tent and got on Sam and left for loop 4.

On loop 4 the footing had gone from ok to slippery and hazardous.  We all went as best we could.  After this loop we had another 40 min hold.  This is when it really got HOT and sticky... like a rice cooker.  I told Becky that I thought all of the horses had done really well and that we had a lot of talent out there but that it was getting dangerous.  She said that we would probably slow down on the next loop.  We all saddled up and mounted.  Becky had not told us our speed yet and we were instructed to go over to where she was to get instructions for the loop.  We all went over there and she informed us that we would be doing the loop at 3 MPH (this is where I got to thinking "This is going to be a long @#$% loop")  and then she added that we should head towards our trailers.  We all thought about this for a second and cheered.  We didn't need to do 80 miles after all, we would only do 52.  It was plenty, trust me.

I feel that Sam and Smitty had a perfect day.  We will find out tomorrow who is in the top ten.

Good night!!

Heather

Well this is really enjoyable.  We are about to go to sleep.  Tomorrow is the time trial where people will make it or break it.  Hopefully everyone makes good choices.  It was 93 degrees out today with similar humidity.  It was freakin' hot out to put it bluntly.  You know it is hot out when the local horses are sweating just standing still.

We were assigned our groups for tomorrow, it will be mainly groups of 6.  We are to do 80 miles at 12.5 MPH average speed.  The trail is pretty technical.  We will see what happens.

I am going to bed.  The next time I write, I should have who the top ten horse rider combos are.

Good night, hopefully I can sleep in this heat.

Heather