LindaL
Well-Known Member
PHEW!!!! We finally got internet at our new house today so I can FINALLY post about our move across country with our stop at Nationals!!! I have been posting on Facebook, so a lot of you know all about our adventure, but this will be more detailed and have pics!
Let me start about a week before the trip...We needed the vet to come out and do Coggins/health papers on Jet and Khan (Gabby was with Syndi), so when we had the vet out, Jet's stifle locked up! It had been an non-issue for quite awhile, since we had been squaring off his back toes and exercising him, but we let his feet grow, so we could get them done soon before we left for Nationals...and it caused him to lock up! Vet said it would be OK to go ahead and have his surgery before the trip, as "rest" in the trailer was actually good for him, so we opted for the surgery, even if it meant him not showing this year at Nationals. This way it would be done and we wouldnt have to worry about it anymore.
My daughter Taylor and I decided to go to our state fair to watch the horse show and on the way down, she asked me if I still wanted her gelding Starfire to go with us. OK, a little bit of history here...she graduated in 2005 and I had dispersed the rest of my horses, but she would not sell her horse, so we let a girl that was on Taylor's HS equestrian team do a "free care lease" with him as a companion horse for her Mini. She never went to go visit him and I kept asking her if we could take him with us to Florida, so I could care for him. She had refused for months, so I had given up asking. So, when she asked ME, even tho it was less than a week til we left and we would need to make an extra divider in the trailer, I said Yes. Had to have the vet out again for HIS Coggins/health papers! Good thing Taylor had decided to have us take him, because his condition was bad!
His topline was pure spine and he looked wormy. Poor guy! We picked him up the next day when we had the trailer!
OK, so not only were we trying to get packed, but all this horse stuff was getting done at the last minute! The divider was not well-thought out and was put together in haste. More on that later...
We finally got our stuff packed and it left on the moving truck on the evening of Sept. 4th...we had to be out at the barn loading up horses at 3:30 AM on the 5th! UGH! Of course since it was dark, we left the lights on in the truck/trailer, not thinking it was going to take long to load and go...except for one thing...the trailer we had before was a ramp load and this one was a step up and our horses decided they do not like step ups!!
Finally got the horses loaded...and oops....truck battery is dead! OMG! We had to wake the stable owners in the middle of the night to jump us! LOL
Got on the road and met Syndi and her crew at a rest area 4 hrs down the road. We had planned to haul Gabby the rest of the way ourselves to help save some money, but...our horses had backed their butts into the divider wall and yanked the hinge from the wall! *sigh* We decided that Gabby would ride with them til we could get it fixed when we stopped for the night in Ogden, Utah.
Utah has some hills...and the speed limit is higher than we are used to, so our truck was working (revving) more than it was used to. While I was driving, I heard a weird noise...then another one...and looked out the windows, but didnt see anything and didnt hear anymore noises, so we kept going. At a rest stop, we found out it was not one but BOTH rear taillight covers had literally blown off the truck! We also found out we had no trailer lights! We decided that we would travel the rest of the way to Ogden in between the other 2 vehicles for safety. It was late when we got into Ogden for the night and decided to figure it out in the morning. We also did not get a chance to work on the divider, so Gabby would continue on with them.
The next day, we decided to do what we had done before and travel inbetween them, so we could keep going. There was a Little America truck stop with a mechanic in Wyoming, so we stopped there and decided to have him check it out. The others decided to go on ahead and we had hoped to catch up...no such luck! The mechanic told us the lighting coupler was melted and he could not fix it. Of course this happened to be Labor Day, so everything was closed! We drove (slow was a "CAUTION NO LIGHTS" sign on the back of our trailer) to the next little town...Rock Springs, Wyoming (out in middle of nowhere! lol)...found a place to board our horses for the night (thanks to Syndi's groom) and got a motel to wait til the next morning for a shop to open!
The mechanic took a look and told us that not only did one tail pipe blow a hole, but BOTH did (dual exhaust)..and both blew hot exhaust right onto the coupler, which melted it! We actually were very lucky that we stopped when we did, because had we decided to go on...there is a very good chence that we would have had a fire in the truck (a BAD one, since we had flammables in the truck bed...and of course our 3 dogs were with us and the horses in the trailer!!
) We got both tail pipes welded and got a new lighting coupler put on, so we were ready to get back on the road again...24 hours behind schedule and without our caravan party.
We made it into Tulsa on the evening of the 8th...in pouring down rain...and after finding out that our 2 extra stalls we needed were in the next barn over from where the horses were...and starting to flood because they were on the end of the outside aisle...we unloaded and set up our feed stall/sleeping stall...wind blowing, tarps flapping in the wind scaring the horses in stalls in back of us...and getting soaked to the bones!
1st night...getting used to the barn lights being on, regular barn noises and all...then "BAM, BAM, BAM" The horse in the stall behind my head was banging his bucket against the wall....over and over! LOL!
We got used to all the noises, but there happened to be a rooster and a donkey someone had brought for their costume class in our barn, so we got to hear them early in the mornings...LOL!
We enjoyed our stay at Nationals, helped out with Syndi and crew, Deb learned how to clip (properly), we got the divider fixed and installed more securely and visited with lots of friends and met new people! LOVE the whole experience there (except next year...we are getting a motel again...lol)
We had 3 horses with us that were not showing (we decided Jet wasn't ready altho he was healing quite nicely from his surgery), so Gabby was the only one who was showing. I showed her 1st in Ammy...she showed well for me, but we got the gate...and that was OK...big class. Taylor Hildebrandt showed her for us in Futurity. She again showed well, but again did not place. I have to say the caliber of horses at this show was truly AMAZING! Syndi showed her for us in Open and Gabby is now a National Top Ten horse...she placed 10th!! WOOHOO!!
We left Tulsa on the morning of the 17th...with all 4 horses this time! Stayed overnight in a small town outside of Birmingham, Alabama in a cute little overnighter stable with a guest house.
No other mishaps (thankfully) along the way and we made it to our new home at around 10:30 PM on the 18th! Basically, bedded down/fed horses and unloaded what we needed for the night and waited til morning to unload everything else and take a look around!
(Just a little side note here: we traveled thru Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, tip of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida!!!)
Our horses traveled well (and the dogs, too), so we were really happy that the only thing that happened was easily fixed!
We have been spending the past week or so getting settled in (movers got here a week after we did), finally got TV yesterday and internet today!
Horses LOVE their new digs...and so do I! LOVE having them here with us, so I can care for them, turn them out, bring them back in, control their feed, etc. They love being able to be turned out together and be horses (Khan is by himself, but he can see the others).
They have been sweating a bit tho because they had a pretty good fuzz startedand they were not ready for the heat down here, so we clipped Starfire and I got Khan's neck done before my clipper blade gave out (need a new one)...then I will do Jet as well.
So...I am loving Florida and our new place...our Miniature Horse Farm...and so after reading my novel (sorry...LOL) here is the photobucket album of pics of the place:
Farm pics
Let me start about a week before the trip...We needed the vet to come out and do Coggins/health papers on Jet and Khan (Gabby was with Syndi), so when we had the vet out, Jet's stifle locked up! It had been an non-issue for quite awhile, since we had been squaring off his back toes and exercising him, but we let his feet grow, so we could get them done soon before we left for Nationals...and it caused him to lock up! Vet said it would be OK to go ahead and have his surgery before the trip, as "rest" in the trailer was actually good for him, so we opted for the surgery, even if it meant him not showing this year at Nationals. This way it would be done and we wouldnt have to worry about it anymore.
My daughter Taylor and I decided to go to our state fair to watch the horse show and on the way down, she asked me if I still wanted her gelding Starfire to go with us. OK, a little bit of history here...she graduated in 2005 and I had dispersed the rest of my horses, but she would not sell her horse, so we let a girl that was on Taylor's HS equestrian team do a "free care lease" with him as a companion horse for her Mini. She never went to go visit him and I kept asking her if we could take him with us to Florida, so I could care for him. She had refused for months, so I had given up asking. So, when she asked ME, even tho it was less than a week til we left and we would need to make an extra divider in the trailer, I said Yes. Had to have the vet out again for HIS Coggins/health papers! Good thing Taylor had decided to have us take him, because his condition was bad!
OK, so not only were we trying to get packed, but all this horse stuff was getting done at the last minute! The divider was not well-thought out and was put together in haste. More on that later...
We finally got our stuff packed and it left on the moving truck on the evening of Sept. 4th...we had to be out at the barn loading up horses at 3:30 AM on the 5th! UGH! Of course since it was dark, we left the lights on in the truck/trailer, not thinking it was going to take long to load and go...except for one thing...the trailer we had before was a ramp load and this one was a step up and our horses decided they do not like step ups!!
Finally got the horses loaded...and oops....truck battery is dead! OMG! We had to wake the stable owners in the middle of the night to jump us! LOL
Got on the road and met Syndi and her crew at a rest area 4 hrs down the road. We had planned to haul Gabby the rest of the way ourselves to help save some money, but...our horses had backed their butts into the divider wall and yanked the hinge from the wall! *sigh* We decided that Gabby would ride with them til we could get it fixed when we stopped for the night in Ogden, Utah.
Utah has some hills...and the speed limit is higher than we are used to, so our truck was working (revving) more than it was used to. While I was driving, I heard a weird noise...then another one...and looked out the windows, but didnt see anything and didnt hear anymore noises, so we kept going. At a rest stop, we found out it was not one but BOTH rear taillight covers had literally blown off the truck! We also found out we had no trailer lights! We decided that we would travel the rest of the way to Ogden in between the other 2 vehicles for safety. It was late when we got into Ogden for the night and decided to figure it out in the morning. We also did not get a chance to work on the divider, so Gabby would continue on with them.
The next day, we decided to do what we had done before and travel inbetween them, so we could keep going. There was a Little America truck stop with a mechanic in Wyoming, so we stopped there and decided to have him check it out. The others decided to go on ahead and we had hoped to catch up...no such luck! The mechanic told us the lighting coupler was melted and he could not fix it. Of course this happened to be Labor Day, so everything was closed! We drove (slow was a "CAUTION NO LIGHTS" sign on the back of our trailer) to the next little town...Rock Springs, Wyoming (out in middle of nowhere! lol)...found a place to board our horses for the night (thanks to Syndi's groom) and got a motel to wait til the next morning for a shop to open!
The mechanic took a look and told us that not only did one tail pipe blow a hole, but BOTH did (dual exhaust)..and both blew hot exhaust right onto the coupler, which melted it! We actually were very lucky that we stopped when we did, because had we decided to go on...there is a very good chence that we would have had a fire in the truck (a BAD one, since we had flammables in the truck bed...and of course our 3 dogs were with us and the horses in the trailer!!
We made it into Tulsa on the evening of the 8th...in pouring down rain...and after finding out that our 2 extra stalls we needed were in the next barn over from where the horses were...and starting to flood because they were on the end of the outside aisle...we unloaded and set up our feed stall/sleeping stall...wind blowing, tarps flapping in the wind scaring the horses in stalls in back of us...and getting soaked to the bones!
1st night...getting used to the barn lights being on, regular barn noises and all...then "BAM, BAM, BAM" The horse in the stall behind my head was banging his bucket against the wall....over and over! LOL!
We enjoyed our stay at Nationals, helped out with Syndi and crew, Deb learned how to clip (properly), we got the divider fixed and installed more securely and visited with lots of friends and met new people! LOVE the whole experience there (except next year...we are getting a motel again...lol)
We had 3 horses with us that were not showing (we decided Jet wasn't ready altho he was healing quite nicely from his surgery), so Gabby was the only one who was showing. I showed her 1st in Ammy...she showed well for me, but we got the gate...and that was OK...big class. Taylor Hildebrandt showed her for us in Futurity. She again showed well, but again did not place. I have to say the caliber of horses at this show was truly AMAZING! Syndi showed her for us in Open and Gabby is now a National Top Ten horse...she placed 10th!! WOOHOO!!
We left Tulsa on the morning of the 17th...with all 4 horses this time! Stayed overnight in a small town outside of Birmingham, Alabama in a cute little overnighter stable with a guest house.
No other mishaps (thankfully) along the way and we made it to our new home at around 10:30 PM on the 18th! Basically, bedded down/fed horses and unloaded what we needed for the night and waited til morning to unload everything else and take a look around!
(Just a little side note here: we traveled thru Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, tip of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida!!!)
Our horses traveled well (and the dogs, too), so we were really happy that the only thing that happened was easily fixed!
We have been spending the past week or so getting settled in (movers got here a week after we did), finally got TV yesterday and internet today!
Horses LOVE their new digs...and so do I! LOVE having them here with us, so I can care for them, turn them out, bring them back in, control their feed, etc. They love being able to be turned out together and be horses (Khan is by himself, but he can see the others).
They have been sweating a bit tho because they had a pretty good fuzz startedand they were not ready for the heat down here, so we clipped Starfire and I got Khan's neck done before my clipper blade gave out (need a new one)...then I will do Jet as well.
So...I am loving Florida and our new place...our Miniature Horse Farm...and so after reading my novel (sorry...LOL) here is the photobucket album of pics of the place:
Farm pics
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