Tomorrow.....

itWe are off to the Oregon 100!!!!

Today kinda sucked.  Work is really busy, so I was totally stressed out trying to wrap up things so that I could be gone.  When I left I had 51 hours in this week, not including the vacation day tomorrow.  OK then, no wonder I feel a little frazzled!

To top things off, I hadn't made it to the store to get food for the trip, Cartman needed a bath (probably last chance for a real one this year- as he'll be going to the trainer's for a few weeks after this ride.)  Then I noticed the truck was filthy, it had been sitting under a tree and had little pine needles and purple bird poo all over it (blackberries are in full swing here).  I hadn't packed anything in the truck and I still needed to do laundry. 

I settled into a little routine and started getting it together.  It was going pretty well.  I had finished scraping bots off of Cartman, slicked his tail up with Show Sheen and gotten him back out to the field with Girlie.  All the horses were fed, the beet pulp was soaked, the fly masks were washed and hanging with care.  When what to my wondering eyes should appear... 

Wait, wrong story.  What did not appear... was the strap for the Hi Tie.  The one item I could probably not stop off and pick up at the feed store or mall.  The tie is adjustable and has a panic snap so you can safely tie your horse to the flexible arm of the Hi Tie.

I got up into the bed of the truck and started undoing all the totes of gear.  I went thru the tack tote, then the horse care tote, finally my camping tote.  No luck.  I opened up the hay bag and felt all around the hay and under it.  I went through the whole pick up, every little nook and cranny, even the gun safe/goldfish cracker holder.  No tie.

I went and dug my headlamp out of my gear bag and did it all again.  I went through the tack room, looked under and behind everything.  Feed room, same story.  No tie!!!

Finally I accepted the somehow I must have lost it as I packed up from Bare Bones.  Totally irritated with myself at this point, I gave up and headed to the grocery store.

I think that I can fashion a temporary strap using an old trailer tie that has a safety snap on one end and an old lead rope.  I will just tie the rope to the trailer tie and cut it at the appropriate length.  Then clip the trailer tie to the Hi Tie arm.  It will look hideous, but after they see my Hi Tie the mismatched pair of Ariat boots aren't going to be so bad.

And that brings me to what I hope is the last of today's trials and tribulations.  One of my old comfortable Ariat boots broke its lace a few weeks ago.  I purchased a new one at the Wilco Grand Opening sale and tonite was the night I tried to install it. 

Oh lord, who'd have known lacing a boot could be such an ordeal.  I'd never actually paid any attention to how these boots are lace, but let me tell you its no criss cross, back and forth lacing job on these babies.  No, the laces are set on top of the bottom of the opening, with a little leather flap in there to boot.  The new laces are a little thicker than the original ones, so they are hard to force through the holes and don't slide.  It  took me about 20 minutes to get one lace in some sort of order and really would have been easier with a pair of needle nose pliers.

I can't imaging how they mass lace these things at the factory.  It was such a pain that after the first one was done I stopped.  I'm debating whether having one brown lace and one black lace is such a bad thing. 

Well off to bed now, gotta get up early tomorrow and hit the road.