We have now been in Shaker Village for a week.  Almost all of the riders are here.  Meg has not arrived yet but both of her horses have been here and Michelle Roush and her horse arrived yesterday and we got to see Emmit, the ride manager for the World Championship.

Jeremy went straight to work on assembling the Supreme Horse Walker the first day we were here.  There was a problem with the fencing as they had not been arranged for.  Jason Stasuk fixed that problem with a few phone calls.  We are in full operation with the walker going for two sets a day. 

The housing we have is nice.  All riders got a room and each room has a full bathroom.  Jeremy and I got two rooms so Deborah's crew, Emilio is staying in our extra at the moment.  Something we were not expecting is that we are on our own for meals and there isn't a place to make food unless you can cook everything in a microwave and store enough stuff for 14 people in one hotel room size fridge!

The horses are healthy and things are looking good.  All of the people here are getting along well.   The barn is really cool as it is an old Shaker barn.  The only bummer is that there is a trail head right at the barn with ample parking for LOTS of day use riders.  Each day there are at least 10-50 horses coming right in our area on their way to the trails.  No one is checking coggins so I hope that they are healthy horses passing through.

Jim Bryant came here this Saturday and left on Sunday.  He trotted and examined everyone.  That was our first inspection.  Sam and Smitty both looked great.

The last two nights we have had team movie nights.  The first night we watched The Hangover and last night we saw Wedding Crashers.  Very fun.

On our first night here, as a team we went to the brand new local steakhouse.  It is in a beautiful building and the food is good but the service has a bunch of kinks to get worked out.  We happened upon Karioke (SP?) night.

Today we had a day off.  Smitty and Sam were supposed to have a day off too but ended up in the walker.  I might not take next Monday off.

Jeremy and I went to a town to try to get a pad insert for Sam's saddle but they didn't have it and while we were there we took the opportunity to go to Starbucks.  Oh the comfort of familiar goodness.

After we got back Jeremy took a nap and I went and took care of Kingley.  He had a bath and some grain while being groomed, a perfect afternoon for him.

At 4 pm the riders and a few grooms went on a river boat tour.  That was peaceful and pretty.  It lasted an hour.  There were tall rock cliffs that we floated by.  We saw some small fish jumping and a blue heron fly into some trees.  Us adrenaline junkies were talking about rather being on wave runners or a speed boat!  Endurance racers are too fast for a float!

I almost forgot about our dinner at the Golden Corral.  This is a buffet with a lot of options.  We couldn't figure out how they could break even at $10.00 per person.  Dave figured he drank enough sweet tea to make up for that $10. 

Ceci's final plate of food consisted of watermelon, strawberries, a tall mound of gummy bears and M&M's and a slice of peperoni pizza!  To give you a better picture, imagine the watermelon melting the color off of the M&M's and swirling around with all of the above.  Pretty colorful.

We just got back from the barn where the guys were trying to rebuild the wall of the historic barn that a team mates runaway truck had met up with earlier today.  The fun never ends.

I will try to keep up a little better than I have been as I now have better internet service.

On another note congratulations to Stirgess and Roof on completing their third 50 at the Camp Far West ride this weekend.  They were carrying Megan Robinson and Breanna Chamberlin.  Thank you both for getting these guys through.

Heather