After an all day rain yesterday that prevented us from doing a thing about packing and making any further preparations, Hubby and I got up early this morning to beautiful sunshine but lots of wind, and a long list of things to complete, which we managed to do by just before 2:00, when we hit the road for Kenansville. After getting the wrong directions from my GPS, we arrived at the right site at about 4:30. After a lengthy registration process, we were directed to an area way at the back of a field where there were trees to highline our horses for the night, as it was my understanding the temporary corrals were not coming in before tomorrow, though I did see a line of them in the middle of the field, but figured they were reserved for workers or volunteers, as no one mentioned them to me. Trailers were already scattered everywhere, and though they said the groups were divided up by region, there didn't seem to be any real organization there. As we followed the trail boss in his Gator, about halfway across the field, which was already wet and muddy, we ended up getting stuck. Lots of folks came out to help, all sympathetic to our plight, and many of them thought THEY were going to get stuck there, too, and that it was only a matter of time before someone did. We were the first that finally did. After unloading the horses, an attempt was made to pull us out first with the Gater (no go), and then with a pickup truck (no go), we finally ganged a second truck to the first truck and finally managed to break free. An auspicious beginning... We finally made it back to the line of trees where there were two or three other trailers, whom we learned were not in our group at all, (nor were either of the others that were there in the same group), so we're not quite sure why we were brought back here, other than to have a place to highline. By now, the sun was getting low, and since dinner was only available for a limited time, we tied the horses to the trailer and walked down to the dining area. Despite the large number of trailers and people in camp, hardly anyone was there for the dinner, which turned out to be cold hamburgers, beans and potato chips, and a hot dog I saved for breakfast. We asked about decaf coffee and were pointed to a pot, but I suspect it wasn't decaf at all. After choking down that meal (which they charged an outrageous $15 each for!), we headed back to camp, a long walk in the rapidly dropping temperatures. The wind was gusting up to 30 mph, and was cold, coming from the north. We managed to get a highline up and feed and water the horses before I started trying to put together a bed in the back of the van. We figured it would be better to sleep in the van, so I got out the air mattress and blew it up, got out the sleeping bags and a thick quilt I had brought along, and changed into our long underwear, thinking that would be enough. We ran the heater in the van until we went to bed, by 8:30, and snuggled up to do our best to sleep, knowing the next week's schedule would include a 5:00 wake up call every day, so we better get used to the early to bed, early to rise schedule!
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