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Re: [RC] [RC] Endurance Carolina Style: Prequal - Laurie Durgin

34 feet plus a 3 horse on it? I thought you had to have a special license after a certain length. My husband said something like that, at least in Ga. you have to have a class III or something like that don't you?(he used to drive the fireengines in volunteer dept. ) Cause I said something about dragging a popup behind our gooseneck... and he said he'd have to get a different license to pull that much length....






From: "Howard Bramhall" <howard9732@xxxxxxx>
To: "ridecamp" <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [RC]   Endurance Carolina Style:  Prequal
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 11:07:17 -0500

Well, what can I say? Evidently, unless I've lost my ability to be abundantly verbose, and, I don't think I have, quite a lot. Those Carolinas, they were a calling. The initial leg of the journey had me heading north with the first stop being the Sand Hills endurance ride in South Carolina. My wife and kid were not with me when I pulled out of Daytona Beach on Wednesday morning; we had decided to travel separately, with me driving the Omni Bus and trailer, loaded with three horses (Moonlight Princess, War Cry, and American Spirit). The wife and kid were to follow in our pickup two days later, loaded with enough hay to last ten days (kid has school, wife works, I drive a bus).

I don't really work and sometimes have a difficult time admitting this when someone I meet for the first time gets around to asking me, "So, Howard, what do you do for a living?" My answer, usually, is, "I do endurance." You see, it has become my job, my life, a passion that I cannot describe properly with words, even though I'm arrogant enough to make the attempt. And, I know there are those of you out there who feel the same way, the only difference being most of you have the sense not to try and write about it all.

I swear, I feel like I'm driving some kind of surface floating submarine vessel, with a tug boat attached to the stern, when I'm Captaining this 34 foot motor home. I need to paint it yellow so I can truly sing, "WE all live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine." Sing with me now: "We all live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine." I love that song and must have played it a hundred times (being the lone human on board I can get away with doing this) while sailing towards Florence. As I depart the Inter-coastal Interstate turning westward, my ship motors towards a totally isolated, non-port town name of Patrick. Seas were calm, sky was blue, not much of a wind, and the tide was going in my direction. "Sea of green, sky of blue, in my yellow submarine."

"IN the town, where I was born, lived a man who sailed the sea. He would tell us of ..." OK, enough of that, even though I really feel that traveling in this ship is an adventure unto itself. Attach a 3-horse slant load trailer behind this monolith and I'm definitely taking up more space on the highway than I deserve. Only in America, can a nut like me, be allowed, legally, to pilot through your town or bayou, with no special driver training whatsoever, on my way to an endurance ride. I don't think I could do this in Canada and this Ship of State definitely would not fit on those skinny cobblestone roads in Europe without eliminating hundreds of Mercedes and BMW's along the way. Considering how the Europeans feel about Americans these days, I don't think I would want to attempt such a thing anyway. As they say in Mexico, "Kill the Gringo and take his horse."

Pulling into the spacious state park, just before dusk, I spot the large, recently built barn, with over 20 horse stalls, and the RV parking, with electric and water, about a hundred yards away from the barn. Oh my, this place is just what the Doctor ordered. I love the idea of stalling your horse and living in comfort at a ride. Maybe, because such a thing is so rare. All I know is I sleep very well at night knowing my horses are safe and secure inside a barn. I have a very difficult time sleeping at most endurance rides when they are tied up to my horse trailer or inside a portable corral. I have arrived to endurance horse paradise, Part One, and I know, Part Two, up in the mountains of western North Carolina, will be the same, if not better.

There were a few folks from Canada at the campsite who had been there for a week or more already. Otherwise, the campgrounds were empty; I was a bit early for Saturday's ride. After walking, stalling, and feeding the horses I went back to my Sub to relax, cook up some dinner and have a few beers. I checked out the television and found I could get quite a few stations, which is not the norm deep inside a State Forest in a remote area. And, there it was. The war with Iraq had just begun, and, out in there middle of nowhere, isolated and alone, I became entranced watching it all. The evil wretch of Iraq was getting to learn America's National Anthem first hand. "Bombs bursting in air," comes to mind.

Americans are not the same since 9/11. We're angry, upset and don't plan on letting those whose only purpose in life is to take out people who don't think like they do by blowing themselves up believing this is their ticket to Paradise. War is ugly, it's nasty and difficult to watch. And, there I was watching and listening to every syllable mispronounced by Dan Rather and the snobby Peter Jennings. I wonder how this will all play on Saturday Night Live?












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