We survived another day and another 900+ km. It seemed to be touch and go there for a while but here we are safe and sound.
The day started off well. Catcher seemed to have had a good night based on the fact that he'd finished his bucket of water and all his hay. Based on the sawdust on his side he'd been relaxed enough to lie down at some point. All good things. Although I supposed the keen observer might say that I must not have left enough hay for the obviously hungry horse! There was also an automatic waterer in his stall so he may have been drinking from that too but I was happy with the entire bucket.
We got underway around 7, or 8 depending on which time zone you'd like me to use. We had some heavy rain during the first hour and I could see lightening off to the side. Fortunately we drove out of the storm. Unfortunately it was quite hot on the other side of it. High's of 30. Catcher seemed very restless during the first couple of hours but I wasn't too concerned as he'd done that on day 1 too. (I have to refer to the days by number now as I have no idea what day it actually is any more.) I stopped after about 2 hours to check on him and discovered a sweaty restless horse. Perhaps not unusual given the heat but he'd been fine the first two days. He was eating though and seemed not overly upset so off we went again.
I must say that the rest stops in the US are great. Basically large parking lots divided into truck, trailer and car parking with really clean restrooms and little parks. Of course you're not allowed to walk on the grass nor are you allowed to walk your pet on the grass but I assume someone makes use of them. The other good thing is they are placed approx 45-55 miles apart so you can make lots of stops or space them out.
Stop # 2 revealed a still restless sweaty horse. He was eating hay though so no big cause for concern. The terrain was rolling and generally trending up hill . After talking to Tom I discovered that I was approx. south of Winnipeg. Somehow I thought I'd be further west, that it would be flatter and that there would be fewer towns and less traffic. Sometime during the day we passed Omaha and then Lincoln, NB. After that it did become flatter. By the way, the speed limit seems to go up by 5 mph every other state or so. It's now 75.
Stop #3, or maybe it was 4 since I had to stop for gas somewhere, hmmm. Catcher is chewing up the padding on the inside of the trailer and has it down to the plywood underneath. Poor guy must be really bored. There were also flies in the trailer driving him a bit crazy I think. He's definitely got the rough end of the trip. There I'm sitting in my nice air conditioning listening to the Lost Symbol and he's stuck in the heat with flies and noise. I was quite worried about him actually eating the stuffing out of the padding so I duct taped it up. Of course then I was worried about him eating the duct tape. He did drink some water on the trailer for the first time though!
After this stop I decided it was time to just get to our overnight and set my mind to it. Flat roads, less traffic, vrooommmm. Of course I don't stop thinking about things and quite willing to admit to my mistakes (this time) I made a call to Deb and asked her to see if she could revise my route for tomorrow so that we could do a shorter day. This might mean being late for the start of our class on Sunday but c'est la vie. Better to arrive with a sane happy horse. Deb pulled through for me and quickly found Cactus Creek. http://www.cactuscreekusa.com/welcome.html . This should turn tomorrow into a 6 hour day and Sunday 4-5 hours.
The place tonight is nice. Everyone has been great along the way. Catcher might be a little lonely tonight as there are no horses to keep him company but he has a nice little paddock, a run in shed and lots of hay and water. I need to sleep now.... I'll put some extra photo's on Facebook.
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