eventful travels

Where do I start!?!?!

I had sooooooo much fun getting my best friend married to a guy I love almost as much as her. But I think I'll start at the end and work my way backwards.

Let me start with this: I am 8-hours-of-sleep, kind of girl. I don't need 15 hours, or even 13 for that matter, but I just need 8 regularly. That being said, I don't do very well on less sleep, like 6 hours for instance. And especially not well on a chronic 6-hours.

I had to get up at 4:30 am MST on Wednesday to fly to Jax, which means I did not get 8 hours on Tuesday night. I was up until 4:30 am EST on Thursday, which means I was 2 hours shy of being awake for 24 hours. And this story was similarly repeated on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Alas, not enough sleep.

Yesterday, I got up around 6:30 am. No problem, considering my body has no clue what time zone I'm on or when it's supposed to be sleeping versus awake. I made it to the airport without a hitch. I got on my plane, no problems.

I got on that plane to Dallas. And. I. Passed. Out.

No, I did not just sleep. I passed out. From sheer exhaustion.

Even the guy next to me commented, which may mean I was snoring or something. I don't care. I was tired!

I asked him if they had announced gates, because our plane left 45 minutes late and didn't leave me much time to get to my connecting flight. He said they had, so when I got off the plane, I ran to the board, found my gate and ran.

I literally mean, I RAN! Picked up my suitcases, which by the way, added 40 pounds to me, and RAN!

I got to the train, got to the gate, and they weren't boarding yet. Suh-WEET!

I went to the bathroom.

They still weren't boarding.

I went and got a sandwich.

They were part way through boarding.

My group was called, I went up.

And then I saw this girl.

I used to work with her. In Jacksonville. Notice the cubicle behind her and the little ID badge thing on her belt. She didn't normally wear those sunglasses, it was just the only picture I could think of off hand.

Yeah, well, she texted me birthday wishes and we chatted a bit. Turns out she was coming to Colorado for a yoga retreat. I joked that we could wave to each other in the air.

It didn't dawn on me until she started laughing, that ohmygosh, I had looked for JACKSONVILLE on the board, not DENVER!

I missed my flight because, in the grogginess of post-nap, I looked for the wrong name on the board. As it turns out, the gate I needed was just down from where I got off from Jax. Fortunately, there was a flight an hour and a half later.

Wow. I got lucky.

And well, Amy, I'm really sorry that I didn't say hi. I'm really sorry I didn't say bye. I'm really sorry I cursed upon seeing you, but I think you understood. I hope you had a great time at your yoga thing! And thanks for saving me from getting on a plane back to Jax!

So that's how the weekend ended, but hang tight, once I fish through photos, there will be more!

4th of July

Happy 4th of July and thank you for following along on my blog!

We don't have any guests coming in this next week until Wednesday, so Ellen offered us the days off. I, of course, took them!

Then, on Wednesday, I'm heading back to Jacksonville for Jessica's wedding! Yippeee!

As such, I may be very busy and not have internet access (in the next couple of days), so I'm warning you now that I may not be blogging for a week or so. Hopefully, I'll be able to get you all caught up when I get back.

Check every couple of days if you're an optimist. Otherwise, I'll see you next week!

the long ride fiasco

Yesterday I showed you the long ride. Now let me tell you about the most recent long ride. Whew! Are you ready for this? There aren't many pictures for this part, so if you need some, just go back to yesterday's post.

Let me give you a little background info here. The long ride is an option. You do NOT have to take it. We had only 4 people who wanted to do it.

When I create groups, I try to keep families together, but Wednesday is a day they often split. In yesterday's case, I had a mother/daughter and a father/daughter who were going on the long ride. I took the rest of the family - mother/daughter/son - and put them with a mother/daughter who were leaving today.

When a family leaves on Wednesday, they do a short ride in the morning, are back by noon, and can get on the road soon thereafter. The daughter is 8 years old.

Of the mother/daughter/son trio, the son is 11 and the mother has arthritis in her hips and shoulders. By the way, when riding horses, you use your hips as your back's shock absorbers and your shoulders are used when you need to muscle your horse around.

Ok, so you've got the picture of this short group? An arthritic mom, 2 young children, and 2 people who need to be back by noon.

Well, you see, I did a poor job of communicating and their wrangler did a poor job of using common sense.

He took them on the long ride! Yes, you read correctly, he took this group on the long ride!

Let me remind you.

2.5 hours out.

And extremely steep.

Apparently there were screams, tears, and a near unscheduled dismount.

But alas, everyone made it safely to the trailhead, from which they called back to the ranch.

There was NO WAY IN HECK those riders were going to ride back.

Around 1:30 (note: that's an hour and a half after noon!), I drove the suburban up to the trailhead and picked up the unlucky 5. We had two extra staff who could ride back a couple of horses, but that left 3 horses without riders.

Dan told them just to secure everything and let them follow home. Not even ponied to the saddle horn. Everything was all well and good until the 3 decided to take the old trail, which is now fenced off.

So the boys came back with the horses they were on, but without the 3 stragglers.

Dan in all his cool, calmness, said wait 30 minutes. And don't you know! Those 3 came walking up with the last of the long riders.

Dan knew they wouldn't miss supper!

And for all of our mistakes, Dan took pity on us. Can you believe that? Most bosses would be scolding us to high heaven and Dan, well, Dan had us eat waaaaaaay out back where we could complain about our day and even brought us two six-packs of beer for our troubles!

If you ask me, you just can't ask for a much nicer place to work than that!