My 5-day weekend

Thursday I packed the trailer with horse stuff and my stuff.  I didn't work fast and didn't even get laundry done or make any kind of rhubarb dessert or rhubarb slushy to go with orange vodka and I also forgot to buy beer.

Friday morning I was nervous getting ready and worried that drive would take longer than I thought after getting mileages from map quest et al, had a touch of dire rear although not liquid.  Got on the road by 9:30 which is pretty good for my history.

The drive up went well until the wheels came off right outside of Worland.  Okay it was only one wheel off of my two axle trailer and I saw it start smoking in the mirror and slowed up and pulled over, it fell off as I pulled over I think, it was 20-30 yards back in the road ditch and sizzling hot but it started raining so it didn't start a grass fire or anything awful.

I put on the ratty old old sweatshirt that had been tossed in my trailer a year or so ago and my duster to retrieve the tire in the rain.   Had a heck of a time getting it into my p/u bed and was bummed that no strong males stopped and offered to help.   If I had left the last horse stall empty I could have put it in trailer but I had not and still didn't want to unload the young horses next to road.  Luckily the thin plank I use to set the trailer jack on so it doesn't sink into soft ground was just barely long enough to serve as a ramp and I was able to get the tire rolled onto the p/u tail gate after a couple of fails.  It didn't help the efforts that I was being careful not to grab the center wheel hub that had come off the axle because I was nervous it might be still hot and burn my hands through my riding gloves even though they were now soaking wet.

Rolled into the Cenex at the edge of Worland and spotted a tire shop behind the gas station part.  They only did tires but the manager was the kindest soul, called a trailer shop place who came out and looked at it but could not do any kind of repair and the three of them brainstormed and found someone with a trailer to haul my horses to the ride camp so I could limp out there with the 3-tired trailer.   My emergency ride had a metal floored trailer -diamond patterned for some grip but still I was nervous of slipping horses.   OMG I am so impressed with Tanza's mind, Sadie was askeered to go in that noisy trailer but Tanza hopped right in with just me giving him light pressure as the guy had his lead rope.  None of the other folks was horse savvy enough to apply any pressure to Sadie so he tied Tanza and came out to give her encouragement to load and Tanza stood tied nicely as can be.

We missed the ride direction sign at Hyatteville and guys in the bar said "its just past town on this road -- we get there and it was two ATV trailers,  I had to dig out my atlas of WY with FS roads and seeing Cold Springs road remembered that Tim had said that was the road and my driver knew that road then.   Got to ride camp shortly before dark and unloaded horses and tied to my trailer.  I had to throw fuel money in the truck when we got the horses unloaded at ride camp to get him and his friend to take it.   I don't know if the bag lady sweatshirt made them think I was poor as a church mouse or what but by gosh I was NOT going to let them go without taking money for fuel when it was almost 100 miles round trip for him to drive to have hauled me.  

I was very very happy that they pushed the ride start back to 9:00 because of rain so I would have time to check in and vet in the morning.   Saturday I did the 25 mile ride on Sadie.  I was slow getting her out of camp and the controlled start person was doing a trot down the shoulder of the highway.  Luckily Tenesee was starting really slow on a couple of first time horses,  one with front easy boots with snow studs that were not working out very well so Sadie had some company to go by various "scary" stuff but not a big crowd to make her nervous.   T pulled off the boots off a mile or so out because the studs were bothering, and rode slower than she normally would (I  think, even with 1st and 2nd time start horses cuz she has horses well conditioned at home before going to rides.)

I was slow out of the vet check and hold and Sadie had to do the last loop by herself.  She was quite good about it for me after the first 1/2 mile .  She finished sound.  Really sound, not "she is OK to get the complete but there is a little bobble" but fully sound.  YAY.   She was getting a girth rub after the first loop so I put the treeless saddle on for last loop and had to hop off and lead her out because she was doing high rollbacks (baby rears in there) and I was no comfortable to ride out much shenanigans in that treeless saddle; and OMG I did some 50's in that saddle on Shade and multiple 25s but I hated riding 10 miles in it after having used only my wonderful synergist saddle the last couple of years.   I'm going to have to use a crupper on Sadie to keep the saddle from inching forward and irritating her armpit area.  I want to get a trail-wise saddle but I want to wait until Tanza is up to normal weight  to see if Synergist will keep working awesome on him.

Sunday I entered Tanza as "Red" in the 25 so that I could R/O after the first loop and not have the pull on his record.  He did awesome.  They started right at the dot of 7:00 am and I had not adjusted my clock in my trailer and it was 5 minutes slow so everyone was already out.  I walked him out and down the first few hundred yards of highway and then hopped on.  There was a gal on a roan dun mustang that was only doing a slowish trot a couple hundred yards in front of us and I really wanted to catch them as I wanted to see how Tanza rode with other horses, plus I wanted him to have the security first time riding him in a strange place.   He got nervous of some cows next to the highway and I had to hop off and lead him that couple hundred yards until we turned on to the gravel road.

Then I hopped on and asked him to focus on the mustang and "reel him in" and by gum my rare gem did just that.    It was fun riding with W and Diesel.   She was letting him take it easy because she rode a fairly fast paced 50 on Saturday.  We got to the turn around point and she asked Diesel to canter headed for home.  OMG,  Tanza was keeping pace and having a grand old time and it was such a rush but after a couple miles I was like "I can't let Tanza keep this pace for 7 miles, he is not legged up for it" and pulled him up, which he did not want to do -- but thank goodness Diesel slacked off his pace a bit when Tanza was not right there keeping it up so I was able to let Tanza keep D in sight just a 100 yards or less in front and then we caught up and rode faster than going out but not at a pace that had me worried.

Tanza was not a bit tired at the vet check and trotted out with the vet saying "he looks like he could do 100 miles today"  but it had rained quite a bit on Saturday and I stuck to the plan to pull him rather than take him out on slip slidey footing after his first long faster paced ride ever.   Then he slipped and went down on his side just leading him back to the trailer in the wet grass and I was like "its a sign that I needed to pull, I would have gone back and pulled now if I had not already made the decision"  but OMG I am so excited to get him legged up and see what he can do.  I think he will indeed be able to do the Big Horn 100 next year if we avoid injury and I condition him properly for it.  

The RM and trail master at the ride did not seem to be grokking that I had NO cell phone service so I could not call the repair place the  trailM suggested etc.  I did borrow someone with Verizon cell service on Saturday and got ahold of dad to come with my B/P trailer so I could haul the horses home and he could stay with big trailer as it got fixed.    Sunday evening dad was not showing up and I was worried he got lost or something but he had just been delayed by a big mudslide blocking the road through wind river canyon and had to turn around past Shoshoni and go all the way back through Buffalo (he didn't want to try gravel roads after all the rain)  and then late on Sunday heading out of Buffalo 16 was closed from a small mudslide so he had to just get a motel room and spend night in Buffalo.   Monday I unhooked my p/u so I could get out and make phone calls, could not get thru to dad's cell because we both have crappy plans but I set up to take trailer to place Tim had suggested and left message with RM in case Dad would not be able to make it.  Went back to ride camp and Dad showed up about an hour later.  Whew.  Called RM to let her know that but not positive that message went through as the automatic answering service was acting weird.

I was in power drive mode all the way home,  didn't have to stop and pee too much and tried to keep speed down to 70 as I don't like to tow going faster than that but motored right along except the curvy bits of 16 going over the Bighorn range.   Got home about 9:30 pm which was good time.  Ole was gone, had a message that he was running around from one neighbor and then one from another that she had brought him into her yard so he would not get in trouble.  I left the door to the garage open and big door too when I rushed out to fetch Ole and Boots got out, and I had no water as the hydrant had been left on and run the well dry --but I only needed to reset the pump this morning (could have done last night but forgot) and saw Boots this morning and was able to fetch him in from open small shed where we have the old horse buggy parked.  WHEW,  I was feeling so bummed that he might end up killed because of Ole's crap and my lack of attention.

Ole got a run this morning, acted kind of tired but I wanted him well exercised so he did the full mile or so that I had gone out before letting him out of car.   Tomorrow if Mia again decided she does not need to come I will take Ole on foot so I can get my jogging in at the same time.