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[RC] LQs and Awnings - Laura Hayes

After having spent 6 weeks straight living in an LQ trailer, I have some ideas about what I like and do not need...
 
First, if you are doing long trips, or even multidays, I LOVE a midtack.  The trailer we lived in for XP04 - (three horses, three adults, a teenager, two cats and a springer spaniel) had an 8x8 MT--we had 20 bales of hay (no climbing on top or messing with tarps) 500 pounds of feed, three saddles, a portable corral, folding picnic table, and the kitchen sink...oh alright, that was in the LQ...
 
But I really loved that midtack. 
 
What I don't need is slants or dividers in the horse area--I think they are happier without, and it gives you the option of making a big stall to get your horse out of the rain or in the case of one night in Wyoming- the hoards of misquitoes.  With no drop down doors in this older trailer (the mothership) I had to get in with the horses to water on the road, so no dividers made life easier.  I have since taken the dividers out of my newer three horse slant, and I think the horses like it better- it sure gives them more room.
 
As far as awnings--I had a big one put on my Featherlite and thought it was the cat's behind until one night in Virginia when it got a little windy and the awning went up over the top of the trailer and it's 'arms' stuck in the ground on the other side --right where my mare had been standing until I put her in the trailer because it was sprinkling--damn, I am glad I made that choice.  The awning was wrecked and we never got the parts to put it back on--and haven't missed it.  On XP we never used the awning we had on the mothership, but the kids managed to go under a low hanging tree and put a hole in it while it was rolled up-- two $1800 awnings wrecked-- I am thinking they are more trouble and money than they are worth for us!
 
I have gone from sleeping in a stock trailer (with a baby, no less) to sleeping in my SUV, to a plain, no LQ gooseneck with a mattress, to the 45 foot mothership deluxe, to my currently being made, homemade LQ, and you know what??? I still JUST WANNA RIDE!!!  I don't care where I have to sleep or if I get a shower, I just want the saddle to fit the horse and the horse to be sound!!
 
Laura Hayes
Vine Cliff Farms
Brocton, NY
AERC# 2741