Day 21 - Mood: Pumped!

Just when you are feeling down, missing home, bummed and worried about things, you get thrown a bone to keep you going. Thank God for those breaks! I was in desperate need. I will explain shortly.


I am writing my blog today from Tarleton State college rodeo grounds in Stephenville, Tx. The sun is shining and life is good. Taylor and I have been laying low here the past couple of days, getting some chores down, and riding own ponies. I really like it here. It is so exciting to walk into a restaurant with your jingle-jangles (spurs) on and no one looks at you like you're crazy. The drive through car washes are MADE for duallys and there is a western/feed store on every street! Ya, this is more my style here, except for the smoking, yuck! That kills me, there is way to many smokers in these places, it makes it hard to enjoy anything! And the weather has a mind of it's own, warm and calm one minute, then overcast and windy and colder than cold then next. Its like California weather on steroids!


So, last night I drove (ok, ok, I was driven by Tay) to a barrel race in Rendon, Tx, a few miles south of Fort Worth. They had 55 entries in a cool little indoor pen. I decided to run both horses. Spy and I have been having "Mannerism" sessions, and he is slowly getting better on the bit when it comes to the gate and his attitude. I have to thank Taylor for much of this training. He has been a huge help! I was even able to take the sucker in a time only....walking!


I figured it might be beneficial to do so, seeing as this was an open ended arena, which meant Spy had to stop, ummmm.....never! ha ha. So I ran spy first. It was a sweeeeeet run! We went to get in the ground deep on the first and it gave way, he slipped real bad, but as he went to recover he pulled himself out of the barrel quicker than a regular turn would have been! We went on to crack out two other turns and finish with a 14.9. I later found out that another 14 second run hadn't been run there in the past year and a half, and that the arena record was only a tenth quicker than that! Holy smokes. I couldn't believe it. After my run I watched Brenda Mays run a backup horse and she had a flawless run which I might have thought to be faster, but she clocked a 15.1. I was pretty tickled!


Angel had a great run. I am still learning how to stay square on her and now get into a leaning war. She  had a great first barrel, but trouble at the second and third barrel, ultimately knocking over the second. She still clocked a 15.3, which on any other day would win the race. She would have placed 4th in the 1D on only 4 girls. My traveling partner Nikki was there too. She had great runs on her horses too...I think we have a dynamite trailer load.


Today has been an good day so far. Tay and I got breakfast and took some laundry in. I sewed like a little old lady to put patches on more rodeo shirts. Now I am going to ride!!! Life is good! Later I have fabulous dinner plans with Miss Shannon Jones, Taylor, Nikki and two other of Taylor friends later. Ahhhhh, so excited!!


Tomorrow I got to Fort Worth. We are up in the 2 p.m. performance and then north to Nebraska :-) Wish us luck!


I sincerely want to thank everyone for the love and support. I know my Facebook updates may get a little overwhelming, and maybe even annoying, but understand there is a LOT of downtime here. Ok, well I love and miss you all. Peace and love!!!! God Bless!


Love, 
Bay