Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Day 2 Things go wrong

I got up feeling very sore from yesterday’s slip and pulled out of the race. My Dad spent 1/2 hour trying to get Sonnic to leave camp. He finally set off about 20 minutes behind the last of the pack. I packed up camp and left without Anna because the motor home would not start. So I went with Rachel

But the big problem is the motor home. We think the problem is somewhere in the fuel line. The tow truck driver tried everything he knew (a lot), and we could get several cylinders firing, but we just couldn’t quite get a sustainable running engine. We finally ran out of power to try more and got towed to a diesel engine repair shop in Valley Falls. We are told that the closest restaurant is in Topeka, 30 miles away, so we are in a very isolated place. We won’t know more until we get a mechanic to look at it sometime tomorrow. Rachel and David are in Seneca. Our one piece of luck for the day is that their trailer is parked right next to a motel where they have a warm and dry room with a window looking out on the horses.

We hope we are at a low point with things looking up tomorrow and thereafter.

Day 1 The Adventure Begins

Today was a exciting day, we woke up around 4am this morning to get ready for the day ahead of us, putting horse corrals and feed the horses we saddled our horses and got started at 6 am, and it was already getting warm. I rode Solomons Rock (Rocky) today with my dad who rode Kenlyn Muscatella + Rocky was go today, better then he usually is at other endurance rides.

I made new friends out on the trail a Ausi and a Virginian. The Ausi guy came from Australia just for this ride and bought 5 horses and 2 trailers and 2 trucks, he plans to sell all of his horses before he goes back home at the end of the ride. After making new friends we came on to an asphalt road and all of our horses started slipping my want down and I fell off.I hurt my arm after falling off my horse. Coming into the Vet Check we saw Dave (Ride Manager)and asked how long the vet check was and he said it was a flexable vet check (You can leave whenever). After leaving the vet check a women named Laura Hayes (AERC Board Member)rode with us, clouds came in and started to pore rain the weather got worse (lightning in the distance). Our GPS's stopped working caused by the rain getting in the battery compartment. We came to a water stop were we saw our truck in the middle of the road,it was stuck. The girls (Anna and Rachel)