Maybe someday but this weekend was not our weekend to actually show at Texas Rose Horse Park. I mean, there's like qualifications and rules and junk. Not sure my one spin on Katie at GAG will get me there. *cough
So hubs had to go to Austin to work so that meant I had to drag the child with me. Poor kid, right? Skipping school to do an event. Granted we woke up at 2:30am to be on the road by 3am but meh, no sympathy! We headed out in the van (trying to be cost effective and not waste fuel by driving the beast truck) and WHAM!! (literally) I get a deer smashed into my van. I even slowed down and junk. The chick was hanging out in the middle of a four lane divided road and watches, watches, I slow down and then she's all OMG *freaksout* heads one way as I'm slowing down more, scrambles on the concrete, then decides to launch at my car. Wth. Basically she glances off, but as the minivan is SUPER SAFE, the crumple zone has crumpled some.
Thanks.
I stop and check the headlamp (which is out naturally) and contemplate heading back home. QUITTER! So yeah, I text the hubs and keep on driving. Nothing was going to fall out the way it was and well, sitting at home all day sounded like a massive fail. Upon arrival at Texas Rose though, I find out my passenger door won't open and its a bit more gnarly than I thought. Moop.
We arrive at check in at 6:30a and get our swag, instructions, and gear. I'm not given a Training level fence, just Prelim through Advanced and am like, uh, when does Prelim start? 11am.
Yes, 11am.
I could have avoided the deer issue and been way on time AND dropped my kid off at school if I'd known that ahead of time. I promise, I coulda picked up the orientation thing later on. Oh well :P It gave me a chance to go take some pictures of the Training peeps at the new water complex until my battery on both my camera and phone gave out. Derp. I'd only planned on walking to see where my jumps were so it wasn't completely a BAD PHOTOGRAPHER moment. I did have the spare in the car, so ne'er.
I decide at this point that it was time to move the van right to the course since there was copious amounts of parking there and I knew at the end of the day I'd love it. We began the long trek back while checking out the fences we were passing. Wandered back towards the barns where a nice lady offered us a lift on her golf cart. That got us half the way back and we were good to go. With the van now in a BOSS position right at the gate for official peeps only on cross country, we sat in the van watching Pacific Rim, charging the phone, and eating our swag snacks. Pierce took a nap which looking back was a smart move. Wish I'd thought of it :/
Soon enough it was time to get in position so we packed lots of things and headed out to our jumps in Never Neverland. Imagine my glee that there was a HUGE TREE and a PORT A POTTY at a great vantage point for the jumps. I've never been so happy to be near a toilet. We set up camp and started the day. Our jumps:
Horses, riders, snack bringers, score sheet takers, all sorts of people came by and it was wonderful.
Somewhere during Intermediate in the afternoon though there were some crowd control issues so I began asking people to move. This lead to me yelling at a lot of people to MOVE NOW A HORSE IS COMING when "heads up!" wasn't getting it through to them. Some bizarre person came tweedling up the galloping lane in a golf cart and I was like omg wth? I mean, golf cart on course = official person but whatever. Maybe someone let the riff raff in. Despite my waving and yelling and threatening air stewardess like movements, they kept moving MORE in the way as a horse was coming.
So I screamed.
It was basically an appropriate version of "Move Bitch Get Outta The Way!"
Grumbling, I called in that I needed some muscle as I was running all over about 2 acres to keep my jumps clean plus the lanes. The TD asked me about the golf cart people and I looked around and pointed at the right one. "That's the course designer" I smiled and laugh about how he should know where to stand.
And then I sit down.
And think about it.
Who IS the course designer?
Oh, Captain Mark Phillips.
Derp.
Not a fail moment, not a winning moment, just one of those moments were you can say you screamed at someone like that. Go me.
I also probably miffed off the TD cause one of my refusals was challenged and I wasn't questioned about it. When I asked about if I was supposed to be, he asked me questions THEN and I was like huh? Seems a bit late? I mean, I saw this! And I used arm motions and such to show. He ends with, well there was a video and we went with that. You were wrong.
SHOULD HAVE OPENED WITH THAT.
And so I felt a little dumb for getting all *finger in face* about that, but well. He asked. And I'd just gotten off yelling at 5249 people for stumping around like zombies on the course.
Oh and Mark Phillips.
Did I mention that? Yeah.
The child did alright, he loved the golf carts coming around as the ladies kept giving him snacks and gatorade. I cut him off and people were like awwww poor kid! Whatever. He was covered in so much dirt, candy, food, drink that he looked like a 3 year old and not an almost 7 year old. I mean, come on. He also got a blister and LOST HIS MIND about it cause there was like 1 drop of blood. Naturally as a horse was coming by so I growled at him within an inch of his life to stop yeowling and keep his shit together.
He did and yayness.
The day wore on and Advanced was definitely awesome to watch. My corner jump made me have to stand out near where they were riding and man, those horses and riders are beastly up close. It was so cool to see them.
We headed out after that, stopped for some crazy slow DQ (there were NO fast food places on the trip back and forth from my house to there, seriously! Just two Subways and then I went out of my way to find some breakfast at 5 am. The van was a rock star on the way home and I did some serious soul searching about seeing if I can sell it for what I owe. Its a great car that's "cheap" to drive, but I can't escape that its costing me WAY more than a tank of diesel for my truck just sitting around. :/ I need to pay off some debts/credit cards/horse trailer and the sooner I do that, the sooner I can do funner horse things.
Sacrifices.
But heading to the AECs, as interesting as the trip was to get there was fun and I'd totally recommend it for anyone that wants to see some awesome riders do some awesome things :)
