Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

ok ridecamp, here is the entire story... by the way, thank you to all the people that privately congratulated me on my first AERC ride after I sent out the extremely abbreviated version a couple days ago. It means a lot to get so much support!

 

AERC OSCEOLA 25

November 5, 2005

 

Here is a story of my first endurance ride, which took place at the Osceola National Forest in Lake City, FL, approximately 4 ½ hours east of Pensacola. Dan agreed to come with me, as I didn?t want to haul the trailer and horse by myself (thank goodness, as you?ll see below). Early Friday morning we packed the truck and the three of us (Dan, I and our dog Bailey) headed off to Kellye Pollard?s barn in Milton, where I board Ice. We arrived at the barn around 7:15 am. My goal was to leave the barn at 9 am to arrive in Lake City (on the Eastern Time zone) by mid-afternoon. The trailer was packed and even the horse was loaded, but I sat around Kellye?s living room for a ½ hour while Dan fixed Kellye?s internet connection and modem. Finally the problem was fixed and as we were leaving the house, Kellye asked if we wanted to leave Bailey with her instead of taking him with us. So we said our goodbyes to Bailey and Kellye and headed to the gas station down the street to check the tires. All the tires were low, so it took Dan a while to fill all ten on them. By 9:30 am we hopped onto I-10 and we were on our way to Lake City, only a ½ hour behind schedule.

Just west of Tallahassee, I decided I needed a potty break. At the rest area, I opened up the trailer?s side doors by Ice?s face so he would have a breeze and headed off to the restroom. When I came back, Dan said that we had ?a slight problem?. Well, that?s always code for ?a huge a%! problem?. Dan led me over to the dually?s passenger rear outside tire. It was flat! I didn?t notice the flat while driving, so who knows how long I had driven it like that. Upon further review, Dan found the source of the problem. Someone (see above paragraph!) didn?t put the air-fill hose extension back in its keeper. It severed in half while underway and let the air escape out of the tire! The gentleman in the RV parked next to us came over to see what was going on. The first thing he asked was why my horse was blind-folded. After explaining that it was not a blind-fold, but rather he was wearing a fly mask that doubled to keep hay out of his eyes, he then asked if we wanted to borrow his air pump to refill the flat tire. We refilled it, but the tire was warped. We had a spare tire, but no tools to remove the tire or mount the new one. No problem, we have AAA Plus! After a short phone call, the emergency assistance truck arrived 20 minutes later. While I was waiting, I ate lunch and kept Ice some company. Ice had the munchies too, and he ate half my bag of funyons (who would have known?) and half my container of fruit. Dan didn?t want his fruit, so I gave Ice all of his. An hour after we had stopped at the rest area, we were back on our way.