The Journey Home.....

We arrived back at the showgrounds at 9:00 in the morning on Sunday. We had started tearing down the set-up the day before, but we still had a lot to do. We worked until we had everything torn down and loaded into both horse trailers. All we had left to do was load the horses and hit the road. It was 5:00 p.m. when we drove away from the Expo Center. We ended up taking home 9 horses. We were hauling a horse home for someone that purchased one at the show, and one of our clients stallions that had been at another farm, was coming back to our farm. Plus we had to make a detour on our trip to pick up another client horse (which would make it 10 horses total), who was at a layover spot in Colorado, because their motorhome broke down and they had no way to get her home.

So, we are on the road and before you know it, we came to a toll booth, and yes, we took a ticket! Yeah! At around 6:00 p.m., we had only been on the road for an hour, we stopped at a truck stop, I think the guys had to use the restroom and we were just following them. But when we got out, all we could smell was something burning, like brakes. We at first thought it was our trailer, but once we went around the corner and walked by the guys trailer, you could feel the heat and the smell was awful. When the guys came back out, we told them. They checked it out and then said that we would continue on. Okay..... I would have not chosen to continue, but whatever. So we just pulled onto the on ramp to the highway and we see smoke coming from the trailer tire. We get on the radio and tell the guys that they are smoking. They pull over immediately. We end up doing a u-turn through the median to get over to the other side of the highway to get back to the truck stop. We were not in a safe place to be sitting. This highway was very busy and there wasn't much of a shoulder. D directed me across and we get back to the truck stop. D and T show up a few minutes later. D goes into the store to get some numbers to call. He got a hold of a mechanic that could be there within the half hour. He shows up and they rip apart the tire, they were thinking that we had a bad wheel bearing. Well, come to find out that the brake pads basically disintegrated. So what they ended up doing is disconnecting the brake wire that goes to that tire, so instead of operating on 4 trailer brakes, they would be operating on 3 trailer brakes.

Picture of the sunset while we were sitting at the truck stop waiting for the outcome of the trailer brakes.



We reach our client's layover spot in Colorado at 3:30 Monday morning. D goes into the barn to get Ruby, and AJ tells him that both her and I still hadn't slept and were basically done, we couldn't continue driving. D wasn't very happy, he said that we needed to sleep and decided that T would drive one truck and D the other one, so AJ and I could crawl in the back seat of each truck and try to sleep. A couple hours before this he was telling us that if we needed to stop, we could pull over somewhere and sleep for a couple hours. I think he forgot that we worked our butts off all day Sunday, and then had to jump in a truck at 5:00 p.m. to drive for hours and hours. So I climbed in the back of one truck and AJ in the other and we continued on. I actually fell asleep. I woke up and it was daylight and raining. We were still in Colorado. We stopped to fuel up and I took over driving. A couple hours of sleep was better then none. AJ told me that the new plan was we would layover in Idaho. That meant another 15 hours of driving or so. Then the plan changed back to laying over in Wyoming. That would be only 6 more hours of driving. Thank goodness.



We arrive in Wyoming around 3:00 p.m., unloaded the horses, and fed and watered. We then went to check into our hotel room, where a much needed shower was taken and then we went back to the horses to feed again, out to dinner and back to the hotel, where I was in bed and sound asleep by 8:00 p.m. We had chosen to not get up at the crack of dawn to start the last leg home. We made plans to meet in the hotel lobby at 9:00 in the morning. We went to load the horses and we were back on the road by 9:30.



It was around 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday when another tire blew on the 6-horse trailer. We pulled over and they decided to slowly drive up to the rest area, which was less then 1/2 a mile up the road. Once there, we noticed that not only did a tire blow, but the other tire was about to blow and would not make it much further up the road. So D and T had to change both tires while AJ and I took care of the horses. (All horses have food and water in front of them at all times.)

After an hour delay, we were back on the road again. D thought we wouldn't be home until around 9:00 on Wednesday morning, but we were making really good time and figured we would be home around 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. We get over the last mountain pass and D radio'd us to say that they had to pull over and switch drivers. He told us to keep going (we were only about an hour from the farm) and they would see us later. Yeah! I was free of following. I was so happy to see the familiar signs that meant I was in my own state and my own territory. I pulled into the farm driveway at 2:00 a.m. Once D and T pulled in, we got the horses unloaded, I went to get my car, pulled it down to the horse trailers to get my luggage and I was on my way HOME!! I walked in the door at 2:45 a.m.

Bailey came running down the hall and into the dining room to greet me. He was so excited! I walked back to my bedroom and I felt this wiggling going on around my legs. It was my Sadie Bug! She was also very excited. She usually gives me the cold shoulder for awhile. I had to say hello to my pups, then I jumped in bed and slept until 11:00 the next day.

I didn't have to work the rest of the week. It was nice to just have time to myself and to be at home! I also was looking forward to staying off my foot! I also had a lot of laundry to do.

My silly Mustang decided to grow quite a bit while I was gone. It is amazing how fast they grow, especially when we don't see them for a few weeks! On Monday my farrier was out, and I went to put Chance's halter on. She has outgrown her yearling halter! I had to pull out my "big" horse halter. Besides growing upwards, her head and butt got a lot bigger! I didn't get to do anything with my own horses because my foot (toe) was still really hurting and I just wanted to stay off it and give it a chance to heal. It still hurts, but now that I am back to work, it actually feels better the more I am on it. Once I get home and sit down, it starts to throb.

It has been really cold and rainy (no surprise) here. I have had to use my hand warmers and toe warmers at work. It is so good to be home (but I could really do without the rain!)