Fort Worth...good place to start off

Oh we are finally back from Texas!Wow what a drive. I have done it several times, but I must be getting old or something. I used to be able to crash in the truck, heck I would sleep in the bed of my pickup, or on the beach, or in a pasture; I did that plenty throughout my twenties... it didn't matter. LOL the first thing I did when I got home yesterday was head for the chiropractor!!!!I got cracked back into shape and now I feel much better. Anyway, we went to Fort Worth to the NCHA Futurity. We transported 6 horses there for the NCHA Select Sales- five yearling colts and one broodmare. And we brought one back, a four year old show mare for one of my trainers clients. The new mare is by Peptoboonsmal out of a daughter of CD Olena. She seems very nice so far! Anyway, the haul to Fort Worth takes 2 days. We leave the ranch around 11am and pull into Tucson fairgrounds at about 6am the next morning. This is with a few stops for water and such for the horses. My trainer and I trade off driving and sleeping. We put up the horses at Tucson for about 7 hours, get some sleep, and then head out from there around 5pm, and get to Weatherford around 8am. We got a new truck this year, a 6 speed Dodge one ton. I have hauled our three horse with it a few times, and driven it to town several times. I don't usually haul the 7 horse; it is so long it is tricky to maneuver. I will only haul it on long hauls in the long flat straight parts We set out in the rain. Our first stop was a south 99 truck stop, where I was hit on by a marine fighter pilot. You should have seen this guy. It would not be hard to imagine him sneaking through an abandoned warehouse or bombed out building, automatic weapon in hand, searching out bad guys, like the bourne identity or 007 or something. He has been in Iraq twice, among other places. He was a colonel. He had some sort of Russian or Eastern European accent, and a name of a Roman Gladiator or something. Of course I am so clueless and oblivious I didn't realize he was hitting on me until about 50 miles later my trainer was laughing quietly to himself, and I was like, "what?" He said, "that guy was hitting on you and you didn't even know it." LOL. Well I guess I just don't understand things like that. I mean, sometimes I dress up like a girl, with my hair down and nice clean jeans and a nice sweater, maybe something form fitting or something...this was NOT one of those times. Lets see, I was wearing birkenstocks, a pair of low rise wranglers that are a size or two too big...big enough that I have to keep hitching them up every couple of steps so they dont' fall off, and a baggy old sweatshirt with a frog on the front of it, giving the peace sign, sitting in front of a campfire, with a tent, some mountains in the background, and stars in the sky. It says "Peace Out." My hair was scrunched haphazardly into a bun of some sort, and I had lipgloss on I think, but nothing else. Now what in this picture makes one think a marine fighter pilot would find a girl like this attractive???? Well anyway. I slept most of the way through So Cal as my trainer drove and then took over driving right before we reached the Gala Bend turnoff (to bypass Phoenix). Of course, it always is a bit nerve racking at first, hauling other people's horses. I figure I had about $150,000 or $200,000 worth of horses behind me. Yeah. It's a little stressful at first. Lucky I get the flat part, and the 3 in the morning till sunrise shift. This means there isn't much traffic; most of the other vehicles on the road at that point are long distance truckers. I would rather drive among these guys than regular traffic any day of the week. These guys are professional drivers and know road etiquette, unlike many commuters. I love the passing game. A big rig goes to pass and then before they get back in the lane in front of you, they put their turn signal on and wait, and you give the "okay you are far enough past me for safety" signal by blinking on your high beams once or twice. They then merge and give you a "thank you!" signal by blinking their tail lights at you. Different truckers have different signals. It is a polite thing, and a neat thing, communicating a bit in the dark with "ships passing in the night." I set my ipod low and mellowed out to some Neil Young and the miles just flew by. When we pulled into Tucson, it was rainy and windy. Now usually we put the horses up in the outside pens. They have 2 whole rows of 36x36 pens, set slightly apart, with an aisleway in between. We will pull right in that aisleway and turn them all out, crawl up into the gooseneck and catch some z's, in a good position to keep an eye on the horses, ensured they are safe. Since the weather was bad, this was not an option so we put them in stalls in one of the barns, every other stall. Everyone was well behaved except one. He was nervous and herdbound, worried about his new surroundings, and was standing on his hind legs trying to climb out of his stall. So instead of getting my nice nap, I had to settle for sitting in a folding lawnchair outside his stall, holding onto his leadrope until he settled down. Ahhhh. The glamourous life. I slept through the entire state of New Mexico. We always go through New Mexico during the night, so there isn't much to see anyway. If we were on 40 instead of 20, I would be more interested, I guess. I was born and raised in New Mexico, but in the Northern part, off of 40. The southern part is like most of the Panhandle country of Texas...long, flat, and straight, smelling of crude in many places, oil wells endlessly pumping with heads like bucking broncos, up down up down. My trainer asked to use my iPod. I said sure! I have a dealie that hooks it to the truck radio so you can play it through the vehicle speakers, but he opted for the earphones so I could sleep. I was somewhat thankful for this...see I have more than 2600 songs on my iPod...out of those, my trainer likes exactly 1 of them. The Traveling Wilburys, "End Of The Line." This is not exactly true; if I made him listen to some of the others, he would like them, too, but he has very limited musical taste. He is the type of guy who is happy enough to listen to one song he likes.. over and over and over and over. So I made him a playlist, with that one song, and set it to repeat. The only problem was he sang along. Well, he sang along with George's part, and sometimes Roy's part. He doesn't know all the words. I took over driving right outside El Paso. Now that is a funky city. Any of you ever been along 20 through El Paso? The border fence is right there, this huge prison looking fence, topped with concertina wire. Look to the US side, you can see the high rises of El Paso, sparkling silver in the sun. Look to the other side, shanties, made of cardboard and pressboard, as far as the eye can see. Its a trip. My trainer fell right asleep. This is his least favorite part of the drive, he calls it the most boring part. Truthfully, there isn't much for scenery. If one looks on a map, Texas looks filled up, every nook and cranny, with roads and towns and such. But Texas is BIG. And there are a lot of wide open spaces, darkness for miles around, intersperced only with an occasional oil rig, lit up like christmas, like a beacon in the night, an alien outpost on a far away planet. I set the cruise control and wiled away the miles. Driving long hours is tough on me in some ways. I am an active type person. Sitting still that long is difficult. I can make it fun by writing stories in my head, but I get pretty restless. Driving through that darkness is something else though. Sometimes I was the only one on the road for miles, not another headlight in sight. Despite such a populated planet I felt alone out there, peaceful, as if I were in the Voyager 11, slingshotting my way around Saturn, somewhere out in space, dark and absolutely silent. I think it would be quite an experience to be out there, like Major Tom or something, surrounded by nothing, just silence. I could be underwater, deep, deep under, swimming and floating through miles of deep blue. I often think of what it would be like to be an animal, to not speak or have language. We always have all this noise. Even out here at our ranch there is lots of noise. The highway is close, and we are surrounded by almond orchards. Often we hear the shakers or the sweepers or the tractors. If not them, we hear the crop dusters or the neighbors atv. What it must have been like before all this busy-ness! We got into Weatherford around 8am, on schedule. Somewhere around Sweetwater the temperature dropped to freezing sleet, and a film of ice built up around the antenna, growing until we were forced to pull over and scrape it off, for fear the added weight would tear the antenna completely off. It was miserable cold when we arrived at the ranch we were to drop the sale horses. Weatherford is like cutting horse mecca. On the roads between weatherford, there are huge spreads, one after another, with miles of drill pipe fencing and broodmares in immaculately groomed pastures, fancy entry gates, roads leading to huge indoor arenas and outdoor round cutting pens done in texas style mesquite stake, each place more beautiful than the last. It is the start of me, every year, feeling a bit overwhelmed. In Texas, everything is big. Done big, in every single way. I love going through all the places, going through their barns, etc. It puts anything in California to shame. It makes our place look pretty sub-par, though it is more than adequate and I remember all the time to be thankful for the indoor arena and other amenities I know many are without. I always have to remember to keep things in perspective when in Texas. It is easy to get carried away, seeing all the money there, the things some cutters have. Heck, when it comes down to it, it is about the riding. Our horses are happy and well trained, and well fed, and secure. I have the best job in the world, and I get to ride some fancy horses. I was never one for material things, anyway, heck, my parents are hippies and I am not too far from that myself. Money helps, fancy places are nice, but what it comes down to is ridng, and the horses. For that, all you need is want and desire.