Haulin’ It

Note to my readers: My apologies but please grab your favorite-time-of-day-beverage because this girl is playing catch up in one single blog post.   

 

So this was us at the storage unit in Indiana the day before Jakes high school graduation.  

*Big horse trailer courtesy of my Dad via Montana. Thanks again Dad!

 
And this was my loading crew; a Marine, a pilot and two horsemen.  They got three quarters of it packed in there with a fourth left to grab Labor Day weekend!  

 

June 1, 2015 – With Indy loaded on one side of the trailer…

*He was not impressed there wasn’t an in-flight movie.  I know he would’ve watched it.  Crazy bay. 

  

and some “this-in-that” taking up the other stall, my horse and I dropped my husband off at the airport on our way west.  (Todd’s week vacation was over). I met up with my dad, who had already started out, a few miles up the road.  

   

This is where, at a Rest Area, I pointed out to my father, “Ford Motor Company and Jamco Trailers should use us in their upcoming advertising campaigns”.  

  

He of course, agreed. 

  

Then we almost got a flat. 

 

My dad carries one of these cool trailer wheel ramp things to drive up or back on to when he gets a flat. Because as we all know, you’re probably more than likely going to get a flat at the worst possible time.  In his case think six 2000lb horses or 3/4 of your kid’s “most valuable possessions” (also lovingly known as junk) inside. 

 

Almost sunset as we were passing through Mitchell, South Dakota later that day. 

With the moon coming up behind us…
   

and with the sun going down in front of us, we stopped for the night at a spot with a “bed” for Indy. 

 

The next morning we were loaded and gone by 6:30. 

 

Before we even left Indiana, I pointed out to my dad this would be like the old days when we were in separate rigs traveling to horse shows.  

My dad and mom with the horses, us girls behind them hauling the wagon and carts. 

For seventeen years since I had moved to the Midwest, and he’d come east from Montana for one “equine reason” or another, I’d most often get to go along with him.  We were then in the same truck and able to talk face to face for hours/days on end. 

   

What a treat that was. You see, my dad and I always have more talk than highway.  Always. 
So anyway, we called each other off and on those two days we were traveling.  Arent modern cell phones like Walkie-Talkies of old – only way smaller?  Of course, back in our horse show days, we didn’t have those either. 

Back then we talked in person at fuel stops or wrote messages on the insides of flattened Dingdong boxes and held the cardboard up to the passenger window as we passed them. 

Ya, that’s the way we rolled. 

  

Right before I clicked this picture my dad, who was is front of me (and coming through my speakers on my hands-free cell) said, “Get ready, mountains coming into view just over this next hill”. 

He’s good to me like that. 

  
Golden Hour on day two, less than ten miles from their front door.  

   
And this is a happy horse.  A happy horse looking around thinking he knows he’s been here a time or two (or three) in the past and wondering what’s next.

  
Indy and I hung out a day with Manny and the rest of the herd at my parents place and rested. 

   
After a rest day and after the driveway was clear ;) I loaded him up and drove the five hours….Home, to North Idaho. 

Hear the happy in my voice? :)

   
This is where I dropped my horse for the summer. It’s a “pretty decent” spot on the shores of our lake. ;)

 
He has been living it up (nothing new there) but didn’t get the riding “camp” I promised him. There was a medical issue with the lady that was to ride him for the summer. But she is doing well and he is currently under her care. She just won’t be riding him this season.  Hopefully next!

 

He’s gotten a boat load of attention and some weekly riding from one of her students so that’s better than none and we’re all happy with that. 

 

I spent the day and that night there with my him. I stayed in the apartment/living quarters right over his head actually.

Loved hearing him walk in and out of his stall on that wooden floor off and on through the night. 

  
Leaving my trailer with Indy, I ran back over to Montana the next morning to grab my dads trailer. Again, only a five hour drive. 

   

This probably sounds a bit funny but it’s true: The following morning I dropped him, my dad, at the airport in Missoula (he had a driving clinic to give on an island off Washington state) on my way west, back to Idaho so….

…my crew there, three Budweiser Clydesdale guys, could unload the trailer when they got off work. They just happened to be in the next town to the south (for about a week) – I know!!  How fortunate is that?!

The following day I spent with one of those Clydesdale guys- It was his day off and we’re married so… We had a good day looking at property with our Realestate agent. 

  

And then…the next morning (you guys sensing a pattern here?) he went back to work and I ran back over to…. Ya you guessed it, Montana. I needed to take my dads trailer back, ranch sit and collect him from the airport when he flew in two days later. 

  
June 15, 2015 – It all worked so beautifully beginning to end. And it wasn’t long, maybe a day I think after my dad flew back in, that I joined the Budweiser Clydesdale convoy at the nearby truck stop. 

 

More catch up later when I share some highlight pictures from the summer tour with them {in which I slept in for the first two weeks straight}.
Right now your eyes hurt and you need a fifth refill I’m sure!

Thankful & happy in Billings, Montana on my way back EAST to put my boy in college [insert: 😧, 😓 and 😎],

~d. 

P.S.  I’m serious when I say I really have a craving for some Dingdongs…right now. 

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