Wow! What a whirlwind month (plus a bit). I left WA on September 17th and got back home October 16th. During that time, I clocked 6500 miles on my truck, talked to thousands of people, got a little bit of horsey time in, really learned my camper inside and out, and basically had a great time. Of course, I must say, I don't plan on doing this again any time soon!
I left Snohomish with Monica Bretherton and the time flew until we arrived at Jas' place in Colorado. We stopped at a nice state park in Oregon the first night, spent the next night beside a deserted road in Wyoming and made it to Jas' the 3rd day. Once at Jas' we got to get some horse time in, admiring her herd and meeting my little guy, Stretch (Salam x M.V. Elfia). He's quite nice, with a wonderful temperament, great legs and bone and a very nice shoulder and hip. Lots of chrome too- he looks like he'll be some color bay- maybe wild bay, with lots of white. Jas' husband, Shannon, was wonderful enough to frame in our garden lattice (and thank goodness, as it took him quite a while. I don't know what we would have done without him!) and Jas, Monica and I started off the next morning, heading to April Pruente's place in Missouri, to visit and pick up costumes, rugs, etc for the booth. We stopped at another lovely lakeside state park in Kansas? or somewhere, after battling high winds all day. That really took a toll on our gas mileage...down to 9.4 miles per gallon at one point. Yikes! We made it to April's the next day and settled in for a short visit of visiting, seeing all her horses and loading her costumes and rugs in the trailer. We continued on to another nice state park, in Indiana or Illinois...and drove to Cindy Sither's place in Lexington Kentucky the next day. We arrived in the afternoon and set up our camp, including my gazebo (for all those hours of lounging around, NOT!), and solar twinkle lights. Of course, we spent some time meeting Cindy's herd and chatting with her. She had quite the month planned, with people and horses coming and going.
Next morning, the 23rd, we hauled the trailer to the Kentucky Horse Park. We had been told we had to have a vehicle manifest, which I printed out and left at home on the counter. Happily, Monica was able to get it emailed to her on her Ipad. Of course, after all that worry, the guards at the entrance (National Guardsmen and women) didn't even look at it. Everyone seemed quite confused and there was a lot of building, painting and scurrying going on all over the park. We found our booth, #22 on the side of the Museum of the Horse, and started setting up. As we got going, we realized that it was a good thing we'd given ourselves two days to set up, as it was a LOT of work. We had to park the trailer quite a ways from the booth, so we had to plan what we'd need during the course of the WEG and how we'd get it from the trailer to the booth. The trailer was parked probably half a mile from the booth and our truck ended up being parked about half a mile farther out than that..but more on that later.
We got to see some of the other booths being set up; our neighbors directly beside us were a lovely bunch of young people (they'd probably object, but they were younger than us!) promoting a horse movie called "The Greening of Whitney Brown". Next to them was El Brio Vanners, whose horse starred in the movie. On our other side, around the front of the Museum of the Horse, was Tommy Turvey, who had trained the horse for the movie. It was pretty interesting. We finished up our first day of putting the booth up and headed back to Cindy's for dinner and bed.
More later...
I left Snohomish with Monica Bretherton and the time flew until we arrived at Jas' place in Colorado. We stopped at a nice state park in Oregon the first night, spent the next night beside a deserted road in Wyoming and made it to Jas' the 3rd day. Once at Jas' we got to get some horse time in, admiring her herd and meeting my little guy, Stretch (Salam x M.V. Elfia). He's quite nice, with a wonderful temperament, great legs and bone and a very nice shoulder and hip. Lots of chrome too- he looks like he'll be some color bay- maybe wild bay, with lots of white. Jas' husband, Shannon, was wonderful enough to frame in our garden lattice (and thank goodness, as it took him quite a while. I don't know what we would have done without him!) and Jas, Monica and I started off the next morning, heading to April Pruente's place in Missouri, to visit and pick up costumes, rugs, etc for the booth. We stopped at another lovely lakeside state park in Kansas? or somewhere, after battling high winds all day. That really took a toll on our gas mileage...down to 9.4 miles per gallon at one point. Yikes! We made it to April's the next day and settled in for a short visit of visiting, seeing all her horses and loading her costumes and rugs in the trailer. We continued on to another nice state park, in Indiana or Illinois...and drove to Cindy Sither's place in Lexington Kentucky the next day. We arrived in the afternoon and set up our camp, including my gazebo (for all those hours of lounging around, NOT!), and solar twinkle lights. Of course, we spent some time meeting Cindy's herd and chatting with her. She had quite the month planned, with people and horses coming and going.
Next morning, the 23rd, we hauled the trailer to the Kentucky Horse Park. We had been told we had to have a vehicle manifest, which I printed out and left at home on the counter. Happily, Monica was able to get it emailed to her on her Ipad. Of course, after all that worry, the guards at the entrance (National Guardsmen and women) didn't even look at it. Everyone seemed quite confused and there was a lot of building, painting and scurrying going on all over the park. We found our booth, #22 on the side of the Museum of the Horse, and started setting up. As we got going, we realized that it was a good thing we'd given ourselves two days to set up, as it was a LOT of work. We had to park the trailer quite a ways from the booth, so we had to plan what we'd need during the course of the WEG and how we'd get it from the trailer to the booth. The trailer was parked probably half a mile from the booth and our truck ended up being parked about half a mile farther out than that..but more on that later.
We got to see some of the other booths being set up; our neighbors directly beside us were a lovely bunch of young people (they'd probably object, but they were younger than us!) promoting a horse movie called "The Greening of Whitney Brown". Next to them was El Brio Vanners, whose horse starred in the movie. On our other side, around the front of the Museum of the Horse, was Tommy Turvey, who had trained the horse for the movie. It was pretty interesting. We finished up our first day of putting the booth up and headed back to Cindy's for dinner and bed.
More later...
