[RC] Part 1 of 4: Cindy's Longstreet's Charge story (long) - Cindy Collins
Subject: Cindy's Longstreet's Charge story (long)
For those of you who won’t read this whole story, just let me say that if you have a chance to ride the Longstreet’s Charge 50 miler in the southeast region, you should do it.It’s a “real” endurance ride with challenging, beautiful, extremely well-marked trails, the best awards I’ve seen in years, friendly vets and a warm, hardworking ride management staff. Check out Angie's photos.
A little background…Angie, Jody and I have been emailing and sharing our thoughts on ridecamp for years now.However, we’d never met in person.Each of us kept saying that we should figure out a way to get together.You know how that goes…time just slips away.Finally, Angie asked if I’d come out and ride Longstreet’s Charge on her horse “7.”Many of you may have followed the story of 7’s rescue and his new life as an endurance horse.
Well, I decided I’d better grab this opportunity or it might never happen.First, I had to get school board permission to take leave without pay for six days, just one week before school was out for the year!I’d never done anything like that and had to also deal with the guilt of leaving my students so close to the end of the year (I teach children with autism in middle school).BTW, they were all fine.I missed them way more than they missed me!I had a super substitute and have one of the best teacher’s aides ever.
Next, I had to convince my long-suffering husband that this was something he really wanted to do with his very limited vacation time.So, I tied the trip to a visit with his family in southern Arkansas AND visiting all of the major civil war battlefields between Arkansas and NE Georgia/SW Tennessee!The plan worked…mostly because he loves me and knows how badly I wanted to do this J
We flew out of Cody on Friday, the 15th and landed in Little Rock, Arkansas.We rented a car and headed to Lake Village, Arkansas.We visited family for four days.Had a wonderful time eating tons of deep fat fried food…catfish, hush puppies, and cole slaw by the bucket loads!We sat on the floor of a neighbor’s home so we could watch Rachel Alexandra and Mine that Bird battle it out in the Preakness.We saw a bald eagle nest in a cypress tree on our nephew’s farm with one baby peeking out and two parents who dive bombed us a few times to let us know we were not wanted.It was a super visit, just not long enough, as always.
