Start of week 3, 2001 XP

[imgoneriding@worldnet.att.net]

Hi everybody!  We had a really great day today.  Enjoyed our two days off 
in North Platte, Nebraska.  Now we are camped 10 miles east of Ogallala, 
and tomorrow will ride into Julesburg, Colorado.  Then back thru Nebraska 
into Wyoming in the coming week.  Today was the first day of our third 
week, and we're still hanging in there.  Last night it rained and there was 
quite a bit of lightening.  But we got up, hauled our horses to the start 
and were off......and what a beautiful day it turned out to be!  It was 
cooler and we didn't get rained on.  We started at 6 a.m., and finished at 
3:15, my fastest day so far I think.

Trilby didn't ride today.  I keep hearing names of a few other people who 
have ridden every day so far, but there are not that many.  I didn't count 
all the names at the ride results tonight but I'm guessing there were less 
than 30 riders today.  There are new horses in camp, and a couple of people 
have gone home.

I am feeling pretty good, this day was a whole lot easier than the first 
day of our second week.  I am a lot less tired, and more into the routine I 
think.  The horses are doing really well too, I just weighed them and Rocky 
is maintaining his weight and Weaver has...ummm....well, you guessed 
it....Lard Butt has continued to gain weight.  It's no wonder with how much 
they are both eating and drinking, I even had to switch Rocky to a larger 
girth today.  Most of the horses here look really good, you'll see in the 
photos (www.endurohorse.com).

Barney and Linda and Ann are back from Schellborne now.  Everything has 
been going along pretty well.

Todays ride was really nice, we rode thru more corn and wheat fields, 
cattle, cemeteries and rolling hills.  The roads were soft from the rain 
last night and as usual there was plenty of green grass for the horses to 
graze.  Crews were out providing water and we had a great day.  Debbie from 
Texas joined us today and we rode a lot of the day together along with Pat 
V. and had a great time.  Our horses are doing really well, giving them two 
or three days off in a row is turning them into idiots though and they are 
just too full of themselves.  Maybe a few more days of riding and they'll 
mellow out.  Everybody is still in really good spirits and we're all having 
a good time, even if we have forgotten how many corn fields we've ridden 
by.  Today we rode on more of the original pony express trail than we 
probably have up until now.

Dave is crewing again tomorrow, and Rob is going to the next camp with all 
of the extra horses.  It should be another great day.  I'm riding Weaver, 
it's his turn next.  I foamed his four easyboots on tonight after I 
finished riding.  The night before I had done the same to Rocky.  Now I 
won't have to take easyboots on and off everyday and they can stay on until 
they wear off!  The two boots I did that with on Rocky in St. Joseph stayed 
on two weeks and it worked great.  I'm cutting the heel strap off.  A lot 
of riders shoes are wearing pretty thin, so I'm sure more and more will be 
using easyboots.  Today in a group this morning I counted 8 out of 11 
horses wearing easyboots.

Whinny is doing a lot better and getting around easier now.  She gets to 
have her drain tube removed tomorrow.  That should make her happy.

time for bed!  We have to set our clocks back an hour tonight because we 
changed time zones.  So tomorrow we start at 5:00 a.m.  Tomorrow is 51.6 
miles, another long day.

Happy XP Trails,

Karen
only 29 left to go!