Day 21, 2001 XP

[Karen <karen@storallnv.com>]

Hello!  We just finished the first day of our fifth week of the 2001 
XP.  It's been pretty hot, and just so anybody else shows up to the ride 
and thought that when I say it has been hot, they aren't expecting it to be 
only 80 or 90 degrees <G>.  It's been really hot!  It's 4 p.m. and now 
because of cloud cover the temp is only 92 degrees.  We are baking!

I sponsored Kayla (junior) again today.  She's not only one of three people 
who have ridden every single day but the only person who has ridden the 
entire way so far on just two horses.  The other two riders who have 
completed every day are Terry Wooley and MJ Jackson.  They each have four 
horses.   I'm not absolutely positive that they are the only three but 
we're pretty sure. :+)

We left Stinking Creek at 5:00 a.m. this morning.  Got up at 3 a.m. to 
leave Casper in time to get there for the 5:00 a.m. start.  I wasn't tired 
today though, not like some of the other first days of the week.  A few new 
riders.  The rest of us just sorta plod along and take our time.  We have 
12 hours, so what is the hurry?  We took 9 hours today, which was one of 
our faster days, we even top tenned!  But it's a dry heat (did I mention 
that it was HOT?), so we're more comfortable with it.  There was more water 
on the trail, and crews watered us in spots.

We were wondering who the new crew was driving around with Idaho 
plates.  Duh!  It's Steph and John's kids out there.  They are learning and 
should get the hang of it pretty soon.

At the finish they were giving out watermellon.  It was a long day but the 
trail was nice, we went by more wagon ruts and some historical markers.  I 
rode a lot of today with a few people off and on besides Kayla -- Dorothy 
Sue (who's doing great with Abu), Terry Nance, Louise Mahoney, Tinker and 
Karen Nelson and Robbi Pruitt.  Robbi did a special little mud dance for 
everybody this morning, but I missed getting any photos until later.

I weighed the horses again tonight.  Weaver is at 1020 and Rocky is 
sticking right around 900.  So we're doing okay I guess, everybody thinks 
that Weaver just got here <G>, and Rocky has been eating like I've never 
seen him eat before.  He is doing better now on the trail (he was a major 
twit last week), still a lot of energy but he's much less bored now that we 
are doing some hills and trails.  I try and keep me and Kayla going at 9 
mph or less and everytime we go faster I'll hear from Kayla "you're 
speeding".  :+D

Trilby found a new driver.  She went down to the unemployment office and 
got somebody there.  The guy hadn't shown up with her rig by the time she 
made it at lunch today and she was worried that perhaps he'd gone off and 
pawned her whole rig <vbg>.  He did show up, we'll see how this works out.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, so we are all going to wear red white and 
blue, and have little flags to put in our helmets.  We're going to have a 
lot of fun!

I better get the photos done, till later....

Karen...sweating in the shade
in Wyoming