They're on their way - WEC update

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Hi all,

Well, the team is on their way.  After Monday night's party, the rigs
rolled out the gate Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. and we were waiting at the
JetPet facility before the staff even got there.  The horses were
unloaded, checked into stalls and the huge mountains of luggage and
equipment unloaded and sorted.  Ona was mourning the fact that she
hadn't been able to buy a french press coffeepot the day before, but was
assured that they probably could find coffee *somehow* in Dubai.  At 10
a.m. the truck arrived to take the equipment.  Dr Foss set up the scale
and weighed all the horses to track their weight losses and gains
throughout this adventure.  Kim Christlieb and Shirley Delsart provided
pizza, which everyone fell on like wolves.

At 1, we took all the traveling members over to the terminal to get
their tickets and luggage checked in and found out KLM had lost Karen
Vilander's (traveling with Milarepa and Chuck Stalley's horse for
Mexico) airline reservation.  I didn't see it, and Karen was later cool
as a cucumber, but Ona and Wendy came walking out of the terminal saying
that negotiations had progressed to "really ugly and getting ready to
throw things".  Eventually it all got straightened out and at 2 the crew
started loading the horses into the cargo containers (imagine a big
aluminum box with three side-by-side straight load trailer stalls and a
space in front for attendents and haybags) and onto the flatbed truck
that would take them to the cargo terminal.  All the horses loaded like
real champs---just a brief stop to take a look, say "Are you sure?" and
then right on in and promptly started munching hay, preferably stolen
hay from the haybag next door.

Fire Mtn. Flikka was the last U.S. horse to be loaded, as we were
waiting for an arriving flight bringing some of the Brazilian horses
that had to be unloaded from the plane, trucked to JetPet, reloaded into
different containers and back onto the flatbed.  The team had to be at
the terminal before those last horses arrived, so Wendy was a little
anxious about Flikka not being loaded yet, but Mike Foss was traveling
over with the horses and we were told they would hold the flight until
all the horses were safely aboard.  The Brazilian horses finally arrived
a little after 3, and the trucks pulled out the gate with all 17 horses
right on time.  As I was leaving with the rig to head home, I saw a big
fat KLM 747 go lumbering up at a much lower angle than the other planes
and it sure looked like a plane full of horses to me.

Everyone said to say THANKS for all the good wishes sent here to the
house.  Everyone (except for the horses) were all happy and excited and
these horses looked INCREDIBLE---just jumping out of their skins with
good health and looking truly fantastic.  The people at JetPet commented
all day on how nice these horses were to handle and how much more
pleasant and easygoing endurance people are over their usual race,
jumping or eventing people they usually deal with.  They couldn't
believe we offered them *pizza*, yet.

It was a long day but went smooth as silk.  If professionalism, a great
attitude and attention to every last detail counts for anything at all,
these teams will be tough to beat.

Susan G