2001 XP, Day 3

[imgoneriding@worldnet.att.net]

Three down, thirty seven more to go.  We ended up at a real nice 
fairgrounds to camp tonight.  Again, I've got the best crew -- the horses 
have pens to be in and we are parked on a nice lawn across from real 
showers and bathrooms.  I even got to hose the horse down after finishing 
today.

The ride today was the nicest so far.  The mud is drying up a bit and the 
footing is extremely nice.  It was very warm though, high 80's and also a 
pretty fair amount of humidity.  Luckily, there are still tons of puddles 
along the way to let the horses drink and scoop them.   We've also been 
lucky and some of the local farmers have let us use their horses to cool 
the horses off, which is really great.

We rode past a couple of Pony Express stations today, and finished the ride 
at the Cottonwood Station in Kansas. We're now in Washington, KS.  Tomorrow 
we trailer back somewhere to start.  By 5:30 a.m. this morning they had new 
directions all printed up for all of us telling us the new basecamp for the 
night.  We start at 6:00 a.m.

Barney and Linda leave tonight to go vet the Fort Schellbourne ride.  We'll 
miss them while they are gone.  I took Weaver over earlier and had him 
watch him trot and make sure he was okay to go tomorrow, it'll be his 2nd 
day to go and my 4th day.  Each night we have to fill out our start card 
with our name, date, AERC #'s, horse info and turn it in or else!  So I've 
got Weav's all filled out for tomorrow.  It should be a lot easier day on 
him -- it'll be hotter but we should be minus the strain of slocking thru 
all of that mud.

There are a lot of cemeteries out here.  Corn fields, and oat hay 
fields.  Farm fields, dairies and cattle.  The terrain is rolling, not flat 
like we thought it might be.  Maybe it'll be flat later?   Everybody we 
meet is really nice and friendly.

Today was the hardest day from a crewing standpoint.  We had to trailer 
twice today.  Once during the ride, to get thru the town of 
Marysville.  Then we had to ride another 10 miles and then when we finish 
trailer here to the fairgrounds.

I've been drinking Emergen-C by the quart, several times a day. Water 
too.  I hope I'm staying hydrated well.  I know the horses are, I've been 
being really careful with them because they aren't used to the 
humidity.  Today we cruised along on the HRM between 90 and 103 at a trot, 
and maybe once got as high as 123.  Yesterday, because it was muddy I had 
Weaver's Hr up to 144 twice, and slowed him down (going uphill) when it 
went up.  He spent a total of 11 minutes with his HR above 120, and the 
majority of the time with it under 90.  I have the 90-120 thing set on the 
thing for training purposes, so it's kinda neat to see during the course of 
a ride how often their HR is above and how often it's below and how often 
it's in that range.  I just don't want them to get too hot.  I get off a 
lot and scoop water all over their necks to cool them.  The puddles aren't 
reachable to use a sponge, or I'd use that too.   Today was a long day too, 
10 hours from start to finish.

Another day with 4 easyboots on, and haven't lost one.  :+)   The back ones 
on Rocky are glued on with a heel strap, we did that the night before the 
first day of the ride and they are still on even with all this mud and rain 
and wet.  His skin looks good around his pasterns, no pink showing thru.

I better go work on my photos from today before the battery goes out on 
this thing.

Happy XP Trails,

Karen
& Weaver
& Rocky, 37 more to go!