Re: What's your toughest ride?

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

Joe Long wrote:
> 
> Some of the talk about heat & humidty, altitude, east-west, and such
> got me thinking.  What is the toughest ride you ever rode?  A specific
> running (year), not overall?

Steph is just going to have to forgive me for posting 128 messages in an
evening, but after all this weight debating, this one is a relief. 
Let's see...

Might be the toughest ride was Death Valley Encounter Day 1, can't
remember the year, either '87 or '88.  I was so new and dumb I didn't
puzzle it out that "point-to-point" meant that ideally, you should bring
someone to drive for you.  For details, see Steph's website under "Fun
Stuff" as a story named My Stupidest Day.  Had it not been for Julie
Suhr and Hugh Vanderford, my bones would still be bleaching out
somewhere around Panamint Springs.

Then there was Warrior's Water Hunt in '93.  Forget the heat, forget the
rocks, forget the water crossings.  I'd forgotten to pack a sports bra
and tried to make do with some flimsy little bit of recreational
equipment, fortified with duct tape.  I had blisters afterwards in the
ODDEST places, and my husband wanted to know if I was having an illicit
affair with a belt sander.

Or maybe it was Western States 50, also in '93.  A friend was crewing
and she handed me an ice-cold can of Coke and I slurped it right down,
soon thereafter finding out that anything carbonated during a ride
results in projectile vomiting that impressed even Potato Richardson and
spooked at least a dozen horses.

Ahhh, such fond memories...they make great ride campfire stories, but
it's the most peculiar thing, I try and share these tasty tidbits with
my family at Thanksgiving (I'm the only horsey person) and all I get are
shrieks of disgust, comments like "Oh, for God's sake, Susan", and the
splash of Gramma fainting into her soup.  Go figure.

Susan G