The Adventure Begins.... early!

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis know that I have spent the last couple of years taking care of some horses for a very good friend. I had some retired horses, a couple almost ready to be trained, and a couple of 'babies'. I spent this last spring and summer helping her get 2 of these horses ready to perform. The event we would be attending would be there debut. We had a plan of action, the horses were ready, and we were all set. But, as usual, the best laid plans are usually the ones who go awry!!

This event was quite a distance away (approx 1200 miles), and we needed to arrive there around the 9th of Sept. The event would run from the 12th till the 27th. The plan was to leave on Saturday, giving us 4 days to get to our destination. Plenty of time. However a little thing called a hurricane interfered! It seemed that Hurricane Hanna had a different idea. Hanna had decided that traveling up the east coast looked like a lot of fun to her too. This forced our hand and we left 4 days early trying to stay ahead of the worst of the weather. Not a problem if you hadn't thought you had 4 more days to get all the things you needed together.

Somehow we all managed to get everything we, and the horses, needed together, packed and loaded into the vehicles we would be taking with us. This doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize that we are talking about 10 horses, 3 adult humans who would be staying at the event, and 1 adult who would be driving us and then leaving. We were also leaving 3 horses here at home with my boyfriend, G, and we needed to leave all the food, hay, etc he would need for the period until I returned home.

Yep, things got hectic! And the trip that followed our late night leaving on Sept 4 wouldn't be a picnic either. Although we were running ahead of the main storm, we still had to deal with a lot of rain, wind, bad visibility.... yep, it was not a good time. Think about any long trip you've made in bad weather, and then add in having to take care of the needs of ten horses on the mix. They didn't care that we were getting soaked, they still wanted us to provide food and water whenever we stopped.

Still we arrived safely at our destination...... but the storm arrived with us and we ended up soaked to the skin by the time we got everything ready for the horses and then got them unloaded from their transport and bedded down for the night. Luckily that seemed to be the last of the storm and we would wake to sunshine the next morning.

The next day we spent getting ourselves set up, finding our way around, seeing who else was attending, and watching in amazement as the fair went up around us. Yep, the event I'm talking about was none other than the Big E. The largest fair in the northeast. Since we were a few days early we would have a chance to get oriented before the fair actually kicked off.

I have very few pictures of the trip/event. It poured most of the trip up there, and once there I was usually too busy to run and grab the camera! The picture of S.'s horse hauler at the top of this entry is one I had already in my collection . It's an 'air ride' vehicle and travels much smoother than a lot of horse trailers you see. I know I have a picture of the hauler hooked up to a tractor somewhere, but I unexpectedly had my laptop replaced, and I can't seem to find it at the moment. LOL!

To be continued......