Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

  

Our stallion was ridden over to Sovereign Farms (next door) along with 3 of the Biltmore bound horses.  The other four ended up at the ten acre pasture over near Bush Airport where we are able to place the horses for a few days.  At that point, I wasn’t even sure Biltmore was still possible…. But as the last horses were successfully taken off the flooded farm, I reloaded the Biltmore horses from the “evac pasture” and took them back to Sovereign where they had a regular box stall.

 

In the meantime, CeCi had organized a brilliant canoe brigade for bringing out at least a dozen sacks of feed, 12 bales of hay, and all of our other ride and camping equipment.  The neighbors were kind enough to let us park the 4 rigs at their place & we spent the rest of the day sorting through the trailers and repacking the Sundowner which we would be traveling in.  Bummer, late that afternoon, someone stole one of our canoes from the frontage road so that made it a bit more difficult to get things out. 

 

As the rain had stopped, I fully expected the Creek to go down & perhaps we could start “un-evacing” the horses on Wednesday morning, still with time to leave for Biltmore by Wednesday afternoon.  Not to be, the rains started again that night and the Creek went up 3-4 more feet to a final crest of 27-28 feet.  Luckily CeCi’s husband Jason arrived from their home in N. Texas that evening and helped with the final pack out on Wednesday morning, and agreed to stay at the ranch and bring the horses back in later Wednesday or Thursday when the water went down.  So, with 3 final canoe trips bringing out our personal luggage, food and other supplies, CeCi, Enrique and I got on the road by mid afternoon.  Jason would later fly into Biltmore with crew Member Donna Shifflette.

 

Darolyn Butler  (see Part 2B)