I've discovered that the urban legend of "bad thing come in three's is fo real"
As some of you might know from my
last post we blew a tire on highway 70 onthe way to Columbus for the Equine Affaire.
That was bad thing no.1
I shall continue by saying that we awoke after only about 5 hours of sleep, zombie-like re-loaded Yankee into the trailer, and drove the remaining hour to Columbus. It was quite exhilarating actually, as tired as I was, knowing I would get to see all the magnificent prancing ponies and meet tons of new people, visit my old friends, and exihibit in one days time in front of hundreds of people.
I was pretending that I hadn't already spent a months paycheck on gas too, so refilling for the, oh, 5th time, wasn't frightening at all.
This gas guzzler sure can eat.
So we arrived in C-bus, miraculouisly found our way to the expo center (if none of you have drivenin C-bus I recommend you avoid it like the plague. Possibly the most stressful network of roads I have ever had the displeasure of navigating.), paid our parking, and got Yanks setteld into his stall.
He rolled like a champ.
La-dee-da, Brandon and I went to go park the rig after we unloaded. Seems simple enough right?
Wrong.
No signs told us which way the barns were, so why should I expect a sign leading to the exit? Pfffft we can find our way through this clusterF.
Well, the road I went down was a dead end...So I promptly backed up using my mad backing skills (seriously, I am pretty excellent), and turned around. No big.
Wrong.
I am still La-dee-dah-ing, heading towards another road, when I hear Brandon say those horrible, horrible words...
"SHIT. We just lost 2 more tires"
Whatnow.
What did he say? Surely not that we have two more flats?
But yes, we did. I shit you not. On the same side as the previous flat. WHATTHECUSS.
Excellent. I literally laughed out loud. I could not believe this was happening to me.
Lots of curse words, phone calls and an hour later we got permission to park where we were (which secretly I was happy for since the nearest parking was a mile away!). We had a new task, FIND TIRES!
It was difficult since I did not know the area and we had a time limit. 2 hours to find 4 tires. I called 8 different places, 2 had them, one had them at a * reasonable * price. I bought 2, my mom bought the other two and we kpet one of the older, good tires as a spare. I paid $138/tire and my mom paid $150. WOW, FOL (F our lives).
So since I spent an exponential amount of time stressing my wee head off, and about 5 hours worth finding, getting and replacing tires, I never did get to walk around.
But I did get to RIDE :) In my spanky new shiny County dressage saddle!
IT IS BEAUTIFUL, I know, NO need to tell me :) I wish I could afford a Passier, but alas I cannot. And after my bank account just got raped with new tire expenditures I will not be doing much of anything for a while. I planned for gas $, did not plan for tires. Good news is I just got my SECOND tax return over a $1000, so thats helpful.
But back to it.
I brushed Yanks out, tacked him up and went to the only open arena there was. I did not change clothes besides my breeches so do not judge my massive comfy tee that I slept in, lol.
At first he was a little anxious. There was a TON of stuff going on. Carts, carriages, mean stallions giving him the eye, massive drafts, western horses zipping around, trick ponies warming up...it was a lot to take in even for me. I was proud of how well he handled things. He only got uppety twice, mini rears, when the western horses cut us off and a carriage went by.
He was a little tense the first 10 min, but all I wanted to do was get him out of the stall and loosen him up. I ended up riding only 30 min. There were people everywhere and we kept getting our picture taken, making me wish I had changed :/
I got several compliments on how well behaved he was from many very famous trainers. Made me feel extra good about my horse since sometimes I have my doubts about how awesome he is.
I did a TON of lateral work, keeping his brain occupied.
Overall, he was a gem and barely worked up a sweat in the heat (85). We accomplished what I wanted to by getting out and riding. We were to ride in a clinic and breed demo Sunday, so I didn't want him standing around after a long haul.
So fresh and so clean
oh I LOVE my new saddle btw :)
After our ride I hosed him off and braided him. He promptly tried to remove them but HAHAHA I have fooled you with the slinky!
"Dey no come out mom"
I had about 2 hours till Pfizer Fantasia (more on that later :)) so I DID get to walk about a little. I always love browsing tack and whatnot, but since I had to get tires I couldnt buy anything and I pouted a little. Just a little. I swear.
The massive drafts that are part of Fantasia.
Overall, day 2 of the adventure was SO stressful I thought I would explode and definetly did not go as planned. I cried a lot....but it got better and now the wallet wound doesn't hurt as much since I got the tax return from last year (am awaiting this years still) and get paid Friday.
Thankfully, AGAIN, no one was hurt and Yankee wasn't even in the trailer this time, so that's a relief. I just kept telling myself, it's just tires, its just money, over and over again.
Unfortunately I will mst likely have to cut out some shows I planned on doing this year because of the damage it did to my wallet AND gas prices are estimated at $5/gal+ starting in August and when you have a gas guzzler like mine with 7MPG and a 3k LB trailer WITHOUT a horse in it...its gets expensive.
That night after Fantasia my mom, Brandon, grandma and I CRASHED hard into our pillows, glad the day was over, but excited for the next :)
To be continud....
