On the road to ride camp...

Friday morning, I slept in until 7.  Except I kept waking up sporadically all night long, checking the clock, thinking and re-thinking of everything I needed to take and pack and to not forget.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that the ONLY thing(s) I need are:
A horse
Tack

The rest of it, I don't doubt I could get at ride camp if I arrived only with my horse.  It's really not a joke that endurance people are so generous. 

Honestly, I suspect if I just showed up with a horse, I could cobble together tack to ride in, something to feed him and water for the weekend.  Because that's how endurance people roll.  They're so very generous.  It's one of the things I truly enjoy about being in ride camp.  Well, now that I'm starting to meet some people! 

Facebook helps in facilitating meeting others!  As does riding with people.  I'm quickly figuring out who's who...or at least putting some names with faces. 

Anyway..Friday morning.  The plan was to be rolling on down the road from the barn no later than 10:15. 

Yeah.  No.  11:15. 

It was raining all night, so just kind of icky out.  I hadn't yet filled my water tank.  I needed to load up my coolers with the frozen water and get my food and clothes loaded at the house before I could even get to the barn.

Got Kaylee out the door around 8ish, trailer loaded around 9:30ish (I could NOT resist a final shower before leaving the house since I knew the next shower I'd be taking would be Sunday night when I got home).  As I'm literally putting my boots on, Joe calls and asks if he can meet me out at the barn to at least say "Hi" as I'm running out of town.

So, I bolt out to the barn (well, bolt isn't accurate....I made my way slowly and carefully..you can tell there's 300 lbs of water in the bed of the truck, and I haven't even added the weight of a horse yet!) and make my way down to get Strider.

I stop and say hi to Socks as he's milling about with all the other horses while I wait for Joe.  He's got, as usual, some sunburning going on with his nose.  I need to get something on that to prevent the burning.  Poor fellow.  :( 

I have to hand-walk Strider through a few gates since there's 2 cattle guards in the way.  Always fun as I slog through wet grass up to my knees.  But, we did it.

And, he popped right in to the trailer (YAY!).  That felt good.  However, without Socks on the other side of the divider, he kept sticking his head under it and giving me this pathetic "Mom!  HALP!!  I'm STUCK!!  And sad looking!" look.  It really is pathetic.

I finally loosely tied him up while Joe and I went over the trailer one last time and made sure it was in as good as it could be order.

Said our good-byes, then Strider and I were rolling.

Instead of taking the toll road, I routed through Bastrop.  Not smart.  I think that added extra time to my drive.  I did stop for a potty break and water on the way, and finally gave up and hopped on the toll around at 71, then all the way up through to IH-35.

I stopped for gas around Waco.

And, I think sometimes the Universe puts us where we need to be and gently nudges us to our karmic destiny.

Anyway, I had JUST finished filling the truck up and was fixing to go inside to go potty again (I hate stopping!), and I had been thinking about an instance in the past where a poor guy had approached Joe at a gas station because he was a day or two before payday and didn't have the money to put any fuel in his truck, so Joe got a pump started for him, and the guy put $10 in. 

So, as I was thinking about that, a guy, deeply apologetic, came around the side of the pump as I was putting the nozzle away, and in a very embarrassed tone told me about how he and his wife were from Waxahachie and had driven down to Temple for him to get a job (he installs or does glass for businesses).  And, he realized he'd left his wallet behind, and the only reason he knew was because his wife mentioned she was starting to get hungry.  And, could I lend them some money to put like $15 in their truck? 

I happily started the pump up for him, and offered him a $20 for him and his wife to stop for something to eat as well.  As I told him, it wouldn't get them anything fancy for lunch, but it would at least get them something to eat (and, what I didn't say was, if they were careful and the little bit of gas they put in to his truck didn't get them home, whatever change was left WOULD).

I believe good karma gets paid forward.  I also believe that we put out positive energy in to the Universe, and that the Universe put me there at that exact moment to help him out.  If someone else had been there, he might not have gotten any gas.  If he'd gone to a different gas station, I wouldn't have been able to help.

The good feeling carried me forward.

Until Fort Worth.

Oh gods, how I hate you Fort Worth.  You and your ugly traffic and your road construction and your moron drivers who seem to assume that I can stop in a heart beat. 

I was SO relieved to get off 35 as soon as I was able.  SO relieved.  I'm sure Strider couldn't figure out why he was getting jerked around back there while I struggled with people cutting me off or not letting me merge when lanes mysteriously vanished within 100 yards or whatever.  SO annoying!!

But, we finally go to leave 35 and continue on our merry way to a far less busy road. 

I considered stopping for lunch several times, but by this point, I just wanted to get to ride camp so I could get my horse off the trailer, get my camp set up, and cook my hot dogs I had waiting for me in my cooler.  I'd been thinking about them for days and how good they were going to taste!!

And, as ALWAYS happens, I missed the turn off.  Yep.  ALWAYS happens.  So, I continued down a little further, turned it around and got back on track. 

Beautiful twisting roads with some hills.  I could drink in those views for years.  Wide open fields and just green, green grass.

And then, I turned off a paved road to the Forest road.

POTHOLES!! 

I can't stress how BAD the potholes and divots and just how AWFUL those roads are.  So SO bad.  I kept hollering out apologies to my horse for the rattling we were doing.

But, my phone's GPS got us to ride camp, where I stopped briefly and grabbed my envelope from registration and then I took stock about where the heck to park myself.  Most of the sites were already full, and I didn't want to get to far in to the grass for fear I'd never get out again. 

It was at this moment I was grateful to have a small trailer.  I saw there was an open spot near the registration trailer, near the vet-in area and near the potties.  SOLD!!!

I manage to pull through this site, assess where I want to put my portable corral, and I unload my horse.  Who, I must say, was GRATEFUL to be off the deathbox of horsey-doom!