2001 XP, Day 10, Week #2

[imgoneriding@worldnet.att.net]

Hello again!  We're in North Platte, Nebraska now.  What a great week it 
has been.  The weather was just perfect today and we had a really great 
ride.  l have two photo sets from today to upload once I can find an 
internet connection, probably on Monday.  I can't believe that we are now 
25% thru the ride!  It's going fantastically well, most everybody is having 
a really wonderful time.  We're camped at the North Platte fairgrounds for 
the weekend, and have a great spot.  Our crews are really good at getting 
us good spots, they haven't let us down yet.

I ended up riding Rocky today, so this week I ended up riding both of my 
horses two days and taking one day off.  Rocky finished today looking the 
best ever, and both horses are eating like vacuums.  It's starting to get 
drier which is nice, only 57% humidity (haha), and has been a little cooler 
tho still feels really hot at times going down the trail.

There are maybe a (very small) handful of riders who have ridden every 
day.  Somebody told me today that Trilby even stopped one day at lunch, but 
I'm not sure if I believe it.  I know she got really sick today but managed 
to finish.  She's so nice, last night she brought Dave over a great big 
banana split because he put a new battery in her rig.  Even had whipped 
cream!!! mmmm mmmmmmm

Last night within a few moments there were three corral panel incidents 
with horses all around us in camp.  One was Trilby's horse Beau and another 
was Dean's horse.  Dunno who the third one belonged to.  Between those and 
all the rope burns it's a wonder there are any horses left.  The horses are 
just too itchy to be in corral panels.. I've got mine tied fairly short on 
their trailer ties, they can lie down and eat and drink but they can't 
graze and reach the ground.  So far they haven't gotten into any trouble.

I've had allergies pretty bad, from all the grass.  Pollen is so thick it 
coats the sides of the roads.  It's so green here.  Today we rode thru an 
area where a tornado had gone thru a year ago leaving a path 1/4 mile wide 
by 8 miles long and saw a house that was demolished from it.  I'll be more 
comfortable once we get out of tornado country.  Apparently one place we 
stayed in had a tornado go thru the day after we left!

Tomorrow is laundry day and shopping. We also have another problem to take 
care of.  When I finished today, Dave tells me how great Rocky looks then 
"hurry up we have to get Whinny to the vet hospital".  I was wondering why 
I hadn't seem him on the trail crewing for me for so long.  He had been in 
a spot and threw a stick for the dog, and she went after it like she does a 
100 times a day and impaled it up into her armpit several inches.  So she 
ended up in surgery and now has a tube coming out her armpit, and is still 
groggy and can barely stand.  I'm sure she'll be one hurting pup for a few 
days, so it's lucky for her that we have 2 days off now so she can just lie 
around and drain.  Poor baby.  We lucked out though and one of the vets I 
had in my binder was on call and met us in 5 minutes only a mile and a half 
from our finish line today.  It sure has paid to be prepared when something 
like this happens.

I should get some sleep, it's been a pretty long day!  My fastest so far I 
think, 9 1/2 hours or so.

Happy XP Trails,

Karen
10 down, 30 to go!