Sunday, July 25, 2010

Airplane Ride and Arriving at the Horse Park!!

Well it turns out that 2:00 AM is a very lovely hour in Temecula Ca. It was about 70 degrees and I didnt have much of a chance to acknowledge how tired I was due to the fact that I was going to be loading my horse onto an airplane in less then two hours. The night before I really had all intentions of going to sleep at 8. At that time though I was not aware that a friend of mine Jennie Brannigan would be stopping by. Quickly my 8 o clock plan turned into an all nighter. It was great catching up. She was the one who originally found Chloe for me and also she is a gold medalist from a previous young rider year. 2:00 came quickly and I really was like a kid the night before Christmas, SO EXCITED! After spending a good amount of time just getting Chloe into the trailer my excitement quickly turned into nerves. What if she didn't load on the plane?! Then what?!?! My mom must have sensed my nerves for she texted me at 2:45 in the morning wanting to know everything. We drove to the airport, five horses in the trailer and five extremely sleepy girls in the truck and Terry, the man who so kindly volunteered to drive us. When we got there everything went so quickly. We unloaded all our stuff at an amazing speed and then quickly helped load it on the plane. Then it was the horses turn....Everyone loaded great!! ....except for Chloe. I have to give credit to Tex Sutton, they were so patient and made her feel completely comfortable and slowly she decided to leap on the ramp and then preceed to deer hop all the way to the top. (I got some good pictures!) Once on the plane we had to remain seated and couldnt see our horses until we were in the air. They were normal airplane seats and they did serve us Jack in the Box breakfast, how do I keep getting so lucky?! Once the plane leveled out I went to go be with Chloe. Two bags of carrots went quickly! Its amazing how they packed them in, at least twenty horses were on the plane and it was rows of three. Chloe seemed pretty content until landing and I don't blame her! The handlers let me be with her during landing, and let me tell you standing up while landing is not the most pleasant thing! The flight was freezing cold just like everyone had told me and my 12 layers did not seem like enough until we exited the plane and I was greeted with 90 degree weather and plenty of humidity!! We unloaded all our stuff and repacked it into the trailer that would take them to the horse park. If you haven't noticed a theme in these blogs..packing, jack in the Box and keeping Chloe clean are the main ones! The horses went directly form the airplane to the trailer and Natalia, Tessa and I got situated in the truck that would take them to the horse park. Well after the driver convinced us he knew a short cut then proceeded to get lost, make tiny u-turns, talk about his boss who was his soon to be ex wife, and blast the Indy 500 race on the radio....we arrived!!!! All the horses looked great getting off the van! Chloe was excited about all the grass and it was good to see my dad. He had the stalls all ready for us and helped us set up. I'm pretty lucky!
I returned to the camp site with my dad and was extremely excited to see my dog, avocado! I was greeted with a leash and a collar attached...but no dog. After walking around and yelling "avocado!" (imagine how awkward that is) I soon discovered he was smarter than all of us and made his way into the camp grounds air conditioned office.
I left Chloe with a lot of food and a stall full of shavings! She deserves a good nights sleep :)
Now if you are still reading all of this and have reached this point it is time to share the bad news. I dont have my card reader for my camera! So the only cool part about this post (the pictures) wont be up until tomorrow! But I promise it will be first thing in the morning!!!!!! I got some pretty amazing plane ones! Now it is my turn to sleep!
xoxo Kelly and Chloe