Sunday, August 28, 2011

From The Beginning

What at weekend....

I apologize for the lack of posts last week. I was on a mission to have everything ready to go on Friday, when L and I headed off to Salina, Utah for the last Xtreme Barrel Race of the Year.

It was a heinous week to say the least.

However, by 3pm on Friday, L and I were loaded and heading down the highway. We took my rig because it gave us a lot more room to haul everything. We girls don't exactly pack light. LOL

About 30 miles out of town, we passed a rig we knew, pulled off to the side of the road with a blown tire. It looked like the girls just about had the tire changed, so we kept rolling. Not even a mile down the road...

Yup...We blew a tire.

So there we were, in 95 degree temps, out there changing OUR tire. I already had the spare ready to put on, when a nice guy pulled over and finished the job for us...

Uh-Oh....

I've never had a flat on my trailer before, but my step-dad taught me to occasionally whack the spare to make sure it was full of air. Guess I forgot to do that the last couple of times. My spare was flat.

Soooo...I get on the bat phone and call the hubby.

He heads our way with an air bomb. Airs up the spare, but we are hesitant to continue on with no spare. We turn around, come back home, have the station put a new tire on the spare, check the rest of the tires....

Which by the way, still look brand new.

Everything checks out. L and I bite the bullet and head out again.

We're rolling down the road, laughing and talking, roll past where we blew the first tire, hold our breathes and keep rolling.

Not 10 more miles down the road...

Yup...We blow another tire.

Holy Hell!!!

L and I can not believe it. We are just sick.

L and I decide trying to proceed on, with no spare and we are pretty sure there is no place between Grand Junction and Salina that we can buy another one...and lord knows what's going on with my tires is not a good idea.

She calls her husband to bring her rig, so we can trade out.

Her husband hauls butt to meet us. When he gets there, L and I haul everything we need out of my trailer, load it in her trailer and haul to the next exit to switch horses. At this point, we are hot, tired and not sure if Karma is trying to tell us something...

I told L, if she blew a tire on her rig, we were turning around and going home. I would reimburse her entry fees. LOL...I would have too. It really looked like the cards were stacked against us.

Salina is only a 3 hour trip and it's Interstate the whole way...It took us 7-1/2 hours to get there.

So much for getting there early in the daylight to get unloaded, settled and have time to watch the Xtreme 15 race.

By the time we got horses settled and taken care of, not to mention ourselves...It was 1am.

Six a.m. came pretty quickly the next morning. Not that we or the horses got much rest because there were rigs pulling in all night.

For some odd reason, both L and I thought the barrel race started at 10am the next morning, so we were dinking around, until nearly 8am. L goes up to get the draws and comes back on the run. The barrel race started at 8am. Both of us were in the first 100.

Yea...The f.i.r.s.t. one hundred. There were 245 barrel racers pre-entered and by the time it was all said and done, 351 barrel racers ran.

I ran before L on Saturday and let me tell you...I was not prepared.

#1) Moon had gotten a scrape on his leg the weekend before and on Wednesday, it decided to swell up. A scrape mind you!! He was completely sound and I had gotten most of the swelling out with ice and Bigeloil before we left, but Geez, it freaked me out a little to have his leg swell up like that. I feel like I have the damn vet on speed dial here lately. Over the stupidest crap too. The vet reassured me, it was probably the heat and flies (even though I had the scrape itself bandaged) that caused the swelling. He didn't see any reason not to go ahead and go.

#2) I have never been to this arena before and because we got there so late, I never even got a chance to see it or to see anyone else run. I was up too early in the draw to be able to take the time to go sit and watch any of the runs, so I really felt like I was running blind. NOT a good feeling, particularly since it was a run in, run out alley. Moon has only ever had one opportunity to perform in a run-out and I was having flashes of me turning into an arena dart or getting a knee scraped off if he decided to circle left at the end of his run instead of run out the open gate.

#3) When I was warming Moon up, he was wringing his tail. Moon is NOT a tail wringer. He seemed to be moving out fine. Picked up both leads and held them, pooped normally, took his pee...but he felt stiff in his neck and was wringing that tail.

Needless to say, I had a lot of other stuff on my mind when we came through that side gate and headed in to make our first run.


It was a disaster. It felt like Moon really took off. He turned 1st barrel beautifully and then it was the same old problem we have struggled with. He got stiff in his neck and rather than ride him forward and round the barrel, I just sat down and tried to get him to flex. We hammered 2nd barrel.

For Cripes Sake...After all we went through to get there and I go in and completely chicken out during my run?

I was just sick...

What a stupid, stupid thing to do.



To Be Continued...

12 comments:

Fantastyk Voyager said...

It seems like all the stars were aligned- against you!!

Ruthlynn said...

Hey, what was causing all this tire damage? Where their nails in the road? What road where you on?

Sherry Sikstrom said...

Holy crap! what a wreck all the way round. You guys are tough , after the second blowout I might of packed it in! Glad you got there safely . Too bad about the run. Hopep the rest of the weekend went better

Crystal said...

Wow no wonder your first run was a mess, thats a lot of stuff to deal with! Sure hoping it gets better.

ACountryCowgirl said...

NO FUN:( Hate trips like that where everything just seems to go to crap!!! Hope the next one will make up for it.

Barbara said...

Lots of hugs you way!

Danielle Michelle said...

Sounds like something that would happen to me....I do hope it turned out better. I can't stand strings of bad luck. It just isn't fair.

Cut-N-Jump said...

And as they say, we are our own worst critics...

So did anything Good happen over the weekend? Can we all focus on that instead?

Lucky for you two to have great hubbys who understand and go to lengths to help sort things out.

Shirley said...

Yes, let's hear it for helpful husbands! Mine has rescued me more than once. I'd be lost without him.
With all that going on there's no way you could have been mentally prepared for your run, unless you're some kind of Zen Master.
Hope you figured out Moon's stiff neck etc. and that the rest of the story gets better.

Funder said...

Awww, damn, what a bullshit weekend!

I'm just curious - how old were the tires? Do you bother to cover them during the season or just in the winter?

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Funder-I suspect the first blowout was due to debris on the road, since we passed another trailer that had a blowout as well. The second blowout I think was because the guy at the station overinflated my tires. In the summer, I run my 110psi tires at 90psi, due to the heat on the roads. I told the guy that, but I don't think he listened. I had gone over to where the other guy was replacing the tire and he went ahead and inflated them to the full 110.

Weather checking can be a problem, mostly if you do not pull your trailer much. My trailer is on the road weekly. When at home, it is parked in the shade.

We are actually going to replace all of the tires and rims with heavier models and I'll be buying an extra so I have 2 spares. It's one thing to be-bop around locally, but if I go south this winter, I don't want to be caught in the middle of nowhere. It's not unheard of for debris to take out both tires on one side or to have one tire take out the other one.

However, with over 20 years of hauling trailers all over the country...this is only the 3rd time I have ever had a blowout on a trailer, so I guess I was about 'due'. LOL

Funder said...

Cool, thanks! My trailer is out of the sun and I haven't been diligent about putting the covers on my tires - I haul once a week and it just seems like a lot of trouble. I'll cover them this winter.

Yeah, e-riders also swear by keeping two spares. It's on the to-do list... real soon... :-/