we are all sitting around having coffee and pastries (along with the prerequisite ham and cheese sandwiches) and mulling over yesterday´s events.? Kyle, Tom, Cheryl and I have already been out to the horses and turned them out and cleaned stalls.? Horses look terrific.
We are laughing that the South Americans are amazed that old age and trickery beats youth and enthusiasm any day!? Seriously, we heard a lot of comment yesterday about how "old" our teams are but how fast we come on in the last laps.? Hah!? We may be long in the tooth, but we´ve got something still up our sleeves!
Kyle scored an Arentine endurance jacket last night - Grace, Kyle and I were on the search for the vehicles and I had earlier traded my jacket for a Team Uruguay jacket - Kyle was hoping to get one, too - we saw three young riders from the Argentine team walking ahead of us, and Kyle said he would take one of those - Grace and I said, well, ask!? he said, no - they won´t trade with me, I´m not a rider - we kicked him out of the truck and said go ask!? so he walked up to the boy in the group, who seemed reluctant to do the deal - however, one of the girls shucked her jacket off and handed it to Kyle, and he took his off, and the deal was made - of course, she had to take her cigarettes out of the pocket first - but left her lighter, so Kyle got an extra present.??
We talke a good length of time with the OC for the next Sultan´s Cup - while we were waiting on Gabby finishing (the last Malaysian rider had been hurt in a fall off his horse on the last loop and was hand walking his horse in - they had an ambulance waiting for him at the finish, and a Steward walking in with him).? We talked a lot with the Brazilians, the Argentinians and Colombians.? It was so good to be with everyone and have the competitive thing going on, but yet the sport of endurance also as a talking point and a point of commonality.??
We have Silver!? yahoo...and everyone is jubilant.? We hear from Desiree that Gabby got locked in her bathroom last night - we find out that Becky forgot to cancel her alarm and it went off this morning at 4:20 - Tom had to put his sneakers outside our door last night because the smell was overpowering!? Grace asked someone hosing their shrubbery to wash her sneakers early this morning - these are all the funny stories and what makes this and all of us part of a team experience.? As Mary, Becky, Desiree and I were standing waiting on Gabby late yesterday, a waiter brought us tea and coffee - walking across the mud and crewing area from the restaurant - and it was quite a hike, let me tell you! - because Tom had tried to bring us all something to warm us up, and the waiter saw him strugging and just put everything on a tray and brought it across to us.? It makes it all special.? Flavia and Alfredo getting soaking wet crewing for all of the U.S.
?while their countrymen are all around them.? These are the memories we will take back with us (good thing we still have our memories, since Tom lost our camera with all the photos he´s been taking.
We will not be here for the closing ceremonies - most of us leave tonight and ceremonies are tomorrow afternoon at 3pm.? Vonita, Tom, Mary, Gabby and Desiree will still be here to collect the goods.??
We are back to the stables now, and I´will finish this up when we return to pack for our trip home.
