After weeks and months of preparation, at LAST we headed out on the road today!! It was a day later than we thought, but we pushed as hard as we could, and just couldn't make it out Wednesday, but we made it today!! Of course, nothing went as planned, as usual, but the sense of freedom to solve our problems and meet our challenges is palpable! We began to live in our new-to-us Trailer Rider Royal Custom 4-horse trailer with 20' living quarters last Sunday, to give us the opportunity to work out all the kinks and make sure we had everything we needed. Our friendly neighbors helped get Hubby's dialysis machine in, and we started dialyzing the same day, again, just to make sure we had everything we needed. Yesterday afternoon, our biggest concern was getting around the corner of the driveway. We've had a lot of rain, and the inside corner isn't that well graveled, and Hubby had a dream that we got stuck in the ditch and couldn't get out, so we decided to tackle that problem the day before we left so we had time to solve any problems. We did, in fact, have some trouble, and for a few minutes, we thought the worst had happened. As I went around the corner, swinging as far out as I could, the outside corner was so soft too, that my rear truck tires started to slide, which forced the trailer in the wrong direction and the rear tires of the trailer ended up just over the edge of the culvert when I finally stopped sliding. The trailer looked like it was right up against a tree, and I was afraid if I moved again, it would drag along the tree and be damaged. Upon closer inspection, we actually had about a half inch, and I took the chance of trying to pull it out one more time before we called for help, and thankfully, it pulled straight out of the ditch without touching the tree, and my fabulous GMC Sierra 3500 with it's brand new Michelin tires grabbed hold of the gravel and pulled the rig up the little hill that was our driveway. Whew!! You can imagine what an incredible sigh of relief we breathed at that moment! Though we weren't exactly level, we spent the night there anyway, because we'd already closed up the house and had only a few items left to bring out in the morning. We were awake bright and early, and were headed to Wind Creek State Park on Alabama, but there was rain in the forecast, and since we had hay on the back of the truck, we decided to get out early in the hopes to miss most of it, but as we progressed, we ran into quite a few patches of sprinkles. As we got further south, we took more note of the weather and realized that temps would be below freezing in Alabama for most of the weekend and into next week, and since the plan was to go south to stay warm, we took a longer view and decided to skip Alabama and head straight to Florida asap. So instead of arriving at our planned destination by around noon, we headed for the Coldwater Equestrian Camp at the Blackwater State Forest, a full service campground with lots of trails. We've stayed here before, but I honestly don't have any memory of it at all, and didn't even when we got here! While we had been dodging a lot of rain the whole trip, it really started coming down torrentially about half an hour before we reached the camp, so all the exposed hay got soaked. Thank goodness it's pack pretty hard, so with a little sunshine, should be okay. Unfortunately, even though we had made a reservation over the phone for our campsite, we were told we needed to arrange for horse containment when we got here. The folks in the office had left at 4:00 (it was 4:05 when we arrived!), but one remaining staff person explained I had to get the horses out of the trailer and put them away before we actually parked the trailer, as horses aren't allowed in the actual camping area. He said since we hadn't reserved stalls we should take the "walk-in" stalls, and gave me the numbers. In the pouring rain, I managed to get the horses out of the trailer (Flash's legs were wobbly, but he did all right) and began walking them down to the stalls indicated, which naturally, were at the far end of the row. When I got there, I discovered they were already occupied. I then went to two other stalls that he had initially suggested, and discovered those, too, were occupied. By now I was soaking wet through and through, and walking in ankle deep puddles that had taken over the entire horse area. All this while the rain kept coming down, and the light of the day along with it. In the nearly pitch dark, I just put the horses in a couple of other stalls until I could get it straightened out. I went back to the trailer and Hubby and I proceeded to get the rig backed into what we thought was our spot based on the numbers on the post (which turned out to be the wrong spot-the numbers were for the spot BEHIND the post) and once we got it backed in place, I went back to get the horses fed and watered. FINALLY I was done, and was able to get back to the trailer and dry out. Good news, having a clothes dryer is FABULOUS, I was able to put everything in the dryer. Finally settled in for the evening, but was disappointed there's practically no cell phone signal here, so Netflix isn't going to work. That's okay, though, we have lots of stuff stored on our Dish DVR, no shortage of things to watch! Beer and beer nuts was all the food we were in the mood for (we had a big Arby's lunch when we stopped for fuel), and finally were able to settle in for the evening!
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