Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

WEDNESDAY
I had been packing on and off for days. I'd been thinking and planning this
ride for a very long time it seemed. I was about to take my 9 year old
Arabian gelding, Tanna, to Fort Gordon near Augusta, GA, for his very first
endurance ride. He successfully completed a Limited Distance (LD) ride of 25
miles in April. That was his second LD, the first having been 2 and a half
years ago with his previous owner. Last month, he finished strong, pulling
and ready to go for many more miles, so Liberty Run was going to be his
chance to go for 50 miles.

I also was going for my first endurance completion. I had ridden Tanna in
April and also had ridden 2 LDs four years ago on my previous horse. But
never had I attempted a 50. The moment of truth was coming.

After I got home from work, my husband, Daniel, and I loaded up Serts, a
horse owned by my best friend that I have the pleasure of taking care of.
Serts was not going to be attending this ride. He is a great horse and I
would love to do some LD rides on him at some point, but with our small 2
horse trailer, we need the extra stall to pack stuff into. So we took Serts
to a good friend, Judy, and left him in her capable care for the long
weekend. We used to board Serts and Tanna with her, so she knows Serts well.

We were planning to leave out very early Friday morning, but after returning
to the house, Daniel and I decided to leave on Thursday and overnight near
Chattanooga at his parents' house.

So I spent a couple of hours packing with more intensely. Then fell into bed
to sleep and dream of the upcoming ride.

THURSDAY
I got up early to prepare for work, then decided I would work from home. I
have an hour commute each way, so decided we could get going 2 hours earlier
if I would just work from home and skip the driving. I cleared it with my
boss and started down to business. It was hard to concentrate, but at 2 PM,
I was finally done and turned off my laptop and started last minute
preparations to leave.

At 3:40 PM, we were headed out our driveway. A stop for gas and to drop
something off for a coworker, and then we were on the road.

We made good time, and arrived in the little town where Daniel and I both
lived for years and where his parents still live. We stopped off at our
favorite restaurant and picked up some sandwiches to take with us to Mom and
Dad's for our dinner.

We settled Tanna in a small 10' x 10' pen. We had hoped to make it bigger,
but there was just no more room. Oh, well, better than tying him to the
trailer.

We went in and visited for quite awhile, waiting for Daniel's sister and
brother-in-law to appear from town. Then we visited some more! Finally, I
begged off and went to our camper to bed. There was a room all ready for us
in the house, but I felt better being right next to Tanna and the dog,
Serena, in case there was a problem overnight. Besides, we were
self-sufficient. I usually read a bit before dropping off to sleep, but I
read only a page and a half before going to sleep. I don't even remember
turning off the light. Wow, if I'm this tired now...

FRIDAY
I had hoped to wake early enough on Friday to saddle Tanna for a ride around
my old haunts. I learned to ride in this tiny town and knew all the trails
for miles around. I had (over)trained my first horse for endurance here
before I sold him after only 2 LD rides. I had spent many happy hours
roaming around with my best friend (Serts' owner) when we were teenagers,
her riding Serts, me riding whichever horse I could beg, borrow, or steal. I
really wanted to introduce Tanna to some of my trails and spend some time
reminiscing about those carefree days. But unfortunately, it was after 8 EDT
before I woke up. No time for a ride.

So I took Tanna and Serena for a leisurely walk along the sidewalk, past the
graveyard where my uncle is buried and my grandparents will one day be
buried. Past the field where I rode for the first time in a year after a bad
accident and was so scared that my thigh muscles were cramping and I was
scared out of my mind that I would fall off the small pony I was put on for
my first ride back. Past the house where I spent nights keeping a crotchety
old woman company for $20/night because I desperately needed the money in my
college years. Near to the high school that I spent 2 years staring out the
windows to the horses across the street, counting the minutes to rush out to
ride one of them. Down the sidewalk that I once dragged 50 lbs of feed
through 2 and a half feet of snow to the horses across from my high school
because their owners couldn't get out to feed them. I also turned down the
street that I used to live on for 6 years. In sight of my in-laws' house. My
house no longer there, just a tiny, empty lot, but memories aplenty.

Good thing I didn't go more than 2/10s of a mile down the road! Many more
memories just along that stretch and more ranging out further. One of these
days, Daniel and I are going to have to take the horses to Collegedale and
just ride all around.

After returning to the house, Daniel and I went into the house to eat
warmed-over pizza for breakfast. Yummy. :-) Then we asked Mom to take us to
the little specialty grocery store in town to get some vegetarian meat
substitutes and some sandwiches for our trip to Augusta. She happily obliged
and dropped us off while she went to get my sister-in-law and nephew to be
able to see us before we took off again.

Back at the house, we introduced my 2 and a half year old nephew, David, to
Tanna. He was interested until he saw how big Tanna is. Tanna's small. 14.1
on tip-toe. Maybe 14.1 1/2 if he's levitating. But to a little boy, he's
huge. So I left Tanna in his pen to convince David that he was ok. We fed
carrots to Tanna and David squealed with excitement every time Tanna bit off
a chunk. He'd grab a carrot and want to feed it to Tanna, but his courage
would fail him before he could get close enough for Tanna to get the carrot.
So he'd give it to his mom to feed. Finally, Tanna had enough carrots and
turned his nose up them. David lost interest and his mom took him in the
house while Daniel and I packed up the trailer again.

I grabbed a syringe and electrolyted Tanna, explaining to Mom why. She is
used to horses, but doesn't ride. I bragged on how well Tanna loads and he
didn't disappoint me. I pointed him to the trailer and he jumped in with
gusto. Good boy!

After we left town, we stopped in a nearby small town at a bank to get some
cash and then at the tack/feed store I used to frequent all the time when I
lived there. I was worried about the amount of beet pulp we had brought. I
was afraid it wouldn't be enough, so we stopped to get some. I was
pleasantly surprised to see they now stock the shredded beet pulp instead of
pellets. They used to have pellets only, but that was YEARS ago. Trish, one
of the owners chatted with me a minute or two. "Got a horse doin' poorly?"
she asked me after I told them what I wanted. "Nope," I said proudly, almost
busting, "gottan endurance horse!" She asked after Serts and was pleased to
hear he is sleek and healthy.

I followed Daniel out to the trailer and held the gate while he tossed the
bag of pulp in the trailer beside Tanna. Unfortunately, we forgot to warn
Tanna and he went crazy. Kicked out with both barrels and tried to bolt then
kicked when he couldn't bolt. I tried to calm him from where I was, holding
the door, but Tanna wasn't paying attention. He wanted AWAY from that
crackling bag that was about to kill him. So I had Daniel move so I didn't
have to hold the door and rushed to Tanna's head. I talked to him and patted
him. He was shaking like a leaf and still quite uneasy, but definitely was
calmer with me there. Daniel was trying to get the bag settled. Finally he
did. Whew. Poor boy. But he wasn't getting out of the trailer. I wasn't
about to unload him and let him get the idea that if he pitched a huge fit,
he'd get out. So I patted him a few more times and we headed out.

Off to Augusta! My plea for directions had been answered, so we were
confident of where we were going. We had the GPS units pointed to the right
gate to enter at Fort Gordon, but we just wanted to be sure we had
directions for after entering the base. Thanks to Angie and those that
answered privately with directions. :-)

After an hour and a half, we stopped at a Wal-mart to pick up all those
things one has to get. Daniel was worried about our "new" truck's battery,
so we invested in a good battery and a set of long jumper cables. We didn't
stop to install it, but it came in handy a couple of times when the truck
wouldn't start. We just used the new battery and jumper cables to jump the
truck. Self-sufficient.

We breezed into Atlanta and onto I-285 without a bit of trouble. Then a few
miles onto I-285, brake lights. Knew it was too good to be true that we'd be
able to breeze through Atlanta on the Friday before Memorial Day. It took a
long time to get to I-20 and the traffic was still backed up. We had a
carbon monoxide detector in the trailer with Tanna and we could hear it
going off through the camera speaker. It would quit when we could move at
25+ mph for longer than a minute or two, then start up again. Gotta do
something about that.

Finally, the traffic cleared and we were moving again. After we got a bit
out of Atlanta, I looked on the GPS for the next rest area. We stopped there
and unloaded Tanna and the dog for some exercise, grass, and water. We tried
to get Tanna to eat beet pulp, but he ignored it and the water for the most
part and went after the sparse grass. Since he didn't drink, I didn't
electrolyte him again. After 15 or 20 minutes, we loaded up and moved out
again.

Finally, we were approaching Fort Gordon. We pulled up to the check. They
looked at our licenses, looked all around the truck and trailer, gave Tanna
a few scratches and sent us on. The turns were well marked, I didn't even
need those directions after all!

We pulled into camp. WOW! LOTS of people. Wow. Where to park! We drove up
through the camp, looking and discussing. Finally we came to the end of the
road and needed to circle around what we found out was the restaurant.
Unfortunately, the ride meeting was taking place, with people blocking the
circle. There was just enough room for us to camp right near where we were,
but we were told we couldn't park there. Something about too many horses
near the restaurant or something. Ok. So Daniel turned the rig around and we
headed back the way we came. We went all the way out to the main road to
turn around and try again.

We were planning to head further into camp, but we spotted some empty space
behind some other trailers. It looked a little muddy but we tried it anyway.
Uh, no. We got stuck. We sat in the truck for a few minutes looking at each
other. Now what! We were both tired and were so glad to be in camp, but now
we were stuck. So we got out of the truck. A helpful camper nearby suggested
we go try to find somebody to help us get out.

So we headed up the road. We spotted Roger Rittenhouse and chatted with him
for a minute before continuing towards the restaurant. Then I saw Susan
Reid. Susan bought a horse from Judy last year and had Malak (the horse she
bought) there at Liberty Run for a 25 miler. May looked great, even though I
did't have a chance to go over and see her right away. In fact, our paths
didn't cross again. :-( But Malak looked awesome and I saw her after her
ride from a distance and she was napping, but looked good still.

When we reached the restaurant, we were told that lots of people were stuck
and couldn't we just camp where we'd gotten stuck? I tried to explain that
there was standing water and mud and I didn't want my horse standing in that
all weekend. I must not have done a very good job because Daniel and I were
the only ones concerned. Sigh.

"Come in and get some food." We declined. After all, we had paid for meals
for SATURDAY night, not FRIDAY night and we weren't going to eat somebody
else's food, and/or pay more. Besides, we had to get back and figure out
what to do while there was still a little light left. Little did I know that
that WAS the meal we paid for. :-( They'd had to move the meal to Friday
night because the restaurant opened for Saturday. So I didn't get my rider
meal. :-( And Daniel didn't get the extra meal that we paid for. :-( But
nobody explained that to me. I found out the next afternoon when I was
standing in line to vet in.

We walked the 1/4 mile back to where we'd gotten stuck. Daniel was
determined and told me to stand back. He got into the truck and gunned the
motor, willing that truck to unstick itself. The tires spun, throwing mud
high on the trailer. They spun some more and then caught and started moving,
to my surprise and delight. The truck dragged the trailer about 50 or 100
feet before Daniel shut it off. Self-sufficient.

Doesn't sound like a lot, but it moved us out of the standing water. There
was a perfect place for Tanna that was a bit muddy, but on higher ground
that would dry if it wouldn't rain anymore. And there was no standing water
where we were to put Tanna.

Wearily, we set up camp. Daniel got the panels off the top of the trailer
and set up a 400 square feet pen for Tanna. I added hay, beet pulp, and
water. We ran a line for the dog and snapped her lead to it.

Finally this day was over.

(to be continued)

April
Nashville, TN


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