So Monday morning I left Vegas bright and early. I was planning on going a few hours and resting my head for the night somewhere in Utah. Thanks to my future parents-in-law, I was offered a really cool place to stay in Salina Utah. Well my trip was going well, nothing too exciting to report, except that I started seeing more and more snow on the road sides. My truck also was doing a weird whistling noise I had never heard when I was accelerating. I thought nothing of it, since it was cold and I had a big load in the trailer. Well I get to this place and sure enough it has been vacant awhile, since the owners are racing in vegas, and I get nearly stuck in the snow. I am thinking to myself at this point "uhhh, what am I getting myself into". If I only had a clue what the future held, I may have packed up and headed back West. Well the stay was more than decent. The horses had decent stalls with large turnouts and the place was nice, with electrical hook ups for my trailer and all. So I took care of the horses and went to bed early to get a jump start and my big travel day tomorrow into Denver.
Well, the next morning started out good. The big snow that was supposed to come, hadn't. Lucky for me, or else I would have never made it out of there. So I loaded my caballos and started my journey. It was but 20 miles in that my truck started whistling louder and louder. I am starting to get concerned at this point, but I carry on because there was no over heating or weird transmission issues at this point. I make it several miles to a town called Green River, CO and I can barely hear myself think because the whistle has gotten so bad. So I pull into the one horse town and stop to buy a Serpentine belt that a few of my friends and family suggest may be the problem. I stop at two sad little auto shops and they look at me like they've never seen a diesel before. I get this response twice "We no work on diesel pick-em-ups, need to go over mountain to Grand Junction." And all I heard was MOUNTAIN, great! I leave Green River and put-put towards Grand Junction at the speed of molasses. It is a 105 mile drive to Grand Junction and I was going 20 mph, you do the math!
So, my network of amazing family and friends call ahead and find me a place to stay in Grand Junction, knowing I would be there late and likely have to stay the night. Taylor's family finds me this place of a friend of theirs, The Youngers. These people are God's greatest, nicest people he created, no joke. They about did everything they could for, except for warn me about the front of their yard where the snow had been melting atop Indian Clay. You would be right if you are guessing I got stuck! Yep, in a hurry to get to the dodge dealership and here I am, alone since they weren't home yet, and in a hurry. Oh and its FREEZING! So, I revert back to my days in the sand dunes, and pull out some fancy maneuvering. It takes awhile but I finally get to a better spot, drop the trailer and situate the horses and off I go.
The Dodge dealership gets my truck in, tells me they will have to keep it over night and look at it in the morning. Ok, I thought, I can handle that. I get back to my trailer and the inside thermostat says 22 degrees. Ok, again, I think, I can do this. I reach doing to fire up the generator and I get a pathetic lack of try from it. So now I start to lose it. No truck, no heat, mud and snow everywhere and I'm starving with no food. I call dodge back, and get my pickup back for the night since it was being touched yet anyways. That made life a little better. I used my truck to jump my generator and all was good. I was told however that another storm was coming through over night, so I braced myself.
I woke up the next morning, and to my surprise, no snow! Yay, great day! NOT! It took dodge half the day to figure out I had a crack exhaust manifold and repair it. It would have taken all day if I hadn't called my buddy Barry at Dodge Rodeo. He was so kind to call and expedite the situation. So 1 pm rolls around and I am on the road and headed for Denver! Only 200 and some miles Piece of cake! So I truck along and make a stop here and there to let my ponies out. P.S. Eagle, Co has a super nice fairgrounds that is open to stop at. And O keep trying and WHAM! Out of nowhere comes a snow storm! Mind you, I have never driven snow (except for a few brief moments in the recent Mojave snow storm). I start to panic a little. A few phone calls later I am informed that it is an all out snow storm over the Vail pass ahead of me, that requires all vehicles to be chained and everyone is recommending I don't continue without chains. Well do I have chains, of course not. Yikes, so my ego tells me to go on, how bad can it be. So friends, let me ask you this. Have you ever held your breath for 5 hours? Ya, that was me. I had melt down after melt down as I crept through this snow blizzard. The snow was as high as the roof tops in some places. I keep seeing wrecked vehicles and jack knifed big rigs, and I kept praying for a miracle to get me through. By thr good graces of God I made it. I think I about gave my parents and Tay a heart attack, but it was bad! I should have never been on that road, especially alone. By the time I reached Denver, my muscles were frozen in the clenched setting and I had cried every last tear I had, or so I thought.
So I get to the Denver rodeo coliseum late and get stalls and what not. The poor horses are in these 8 by 10 stalls. So I get the bright idea to hand walk them a bunch, alone again, at night, when everyone had left to go home. Ten minutes into my adventure, my mare spooks at who-knows-what and before I know it I am lying face down in the gravel/mud and she had stepped all over me, my calf, and lower back a little. I found more tears to cry. I was in pain. I had let go of them, but they stood by me as I laid there for a few minutes to catch my breath again. I put them away, took a deep breath, went top my trailer to discover my generator still didn't work, so I packed up my bags. Luckily Taylors dad was in town and had a room, so I went there, passed out and ended my nightmare of a day.
The next day was better (how could it not be?). I got up real early to ride in the 6 am barrel practice. I took both ponies around the pattern and made the decision to run Spy man. I then napped. I thought it was well deserved :-) my run that night was smooth, clean and I felt like it was just pretty! But, we all know that when Spy is pretty in his run, it usually isn't the fastest. I was a 15.7, the round was lead by a 15.2. I wasn't mad, but not overly excited either. Spy had his running shoes on after the run was over though because he used every last inch of the denver coliseum arena, and then the stall barn to get stopped. I thought I might killed someone along the way, but we finally got stopped a half miles away.
The next days run was fast! I went to turn him at the first though, and I had a ton of this mane in my hand, restricting me from getting his nose. It made him bow out of the first real bad, but he recovered and went on. We still clocked another 15.7, I just wish I could have seen our time without the tour of the arena at the first barrel.
Well, I packed up and started to head south. I stayed at a great little fairgrounds in Lamar, Colorado that my great friend Jessica told me about. I then got up early the next morning, which happens to be this morning and drove to Amarillo. I found a cool little indoor jackpot here. I ran both of my horses. They won the jackpot with a 15.5 I believe. Spy was a 15.4 and drug down the second. Angel would have been wicked fast too. I drug my third down leaving it, and so I pulled her up a little (I have no idea why) and she was a 15.8! By golly she's fast! There were some tough, tough horses there today, so I was excited to clock with them.
And now I am laying in an amazing King size bed in a friend of Taylor's house. They were so kind as to give me some stalls, a shower and an awesome bedroom in there amazing house for the night. I do have to say, if anything, this trip I have met some of the kindest, most giving people. I am so lucky to have stumbled across such generous, and genuine new friends.
But, my mind is missing home. My sis, my mom, my pops, and Stanley. I even miss shelby'S god Riley! I have never been this long without family and it definitely saddens me. Buuuuuttt, tomorrow I get to see Tay for a few days and that makes me happier than can be! I miss the fella!
Well, I better get some rest. Tomorrow I will drive to Stephenville to be with Tay, but its a good 6 hour drive. Good night friends. I miss you and I am wishing you all the best. Please call me! I love hearing from home. Sweet dreams and God Bless!
-Bailey
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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