So, my friend/roomate/student/pest (jk) reminded me that I did make this blog named after my Event Team ( I have big dreams that someday people will know Shamrock Eventing the same way they know OCET) <--- wishful thinking I know, so I should write about some "eventing" things. And since she pointed this out and I ran into another friend, Chelsea this weekend I thought I'd share how my life is one big farce (Erin I loved this word so I borrowed it).

In the spring (February of 2009) when I still had delusions of grandeur and was planning on running a 3* that fall with Cam, my friend Chelsea and I decided we were going to venture down to Pine Top Horse Trials to get a good spring run in. I was running the Intermediate and she was running Prelim. We were excited, we got to take her brand new rig all the way to Georgia. The weekend went well. We saw some old friends and had good runs on our horses. It was the trip home that was the problem.

We finished a little late on Sunday, but knew we would be ok driving home because both of us were proficient at driving trailers so we could take turns. The trip was going smoothly, but we were both getting tired. It happened when it was my shift (naturally) and we were driving over Jellico Mountain.
         -An aside here a moment. My mother hated Jellico. She used to say the devil had cursed it. Whenever its sunny and you drive over Jellico it rains, or snows or sleets or something. Naturally because of my mothers hatred of it I feel I need to hate it too, and now I have reason.
So I'm boppin along happy as can be because this rig travels so nicely, right up this nasty mountain (and yes people to me its a mountain, I'm not from Colorado and I've never seen those mountains) and people keep flashing their lights in my rearview mirror. I think nothing of it, they must be flashing a warning at the people going the other direction because of the nasty weather we are driving through. Well, we decide we need a bathroom/gas break and driver change so we stop at the little town of Jellico.....on a Sunday night.....in February....at about 10PM. All of these things spell horror movie waiting to happen.

We pull into the gas station and Chelsea jumps out of the truck to run in to the restroom. Its my turn to pay for gas so I hop out and start the pump. While its running I decide to go open the trailer door and check on the boys, who are both happily munching hay ignoring me. While I'm walking back to the back of the trailer I instinctively check the hitch and then look down at the driver side trailer tires. There's supposed to be two on each side. We're missing one. I immediately choke. I am floored. All the bolts are there, but there's no tire, no rim, no nothing. The tire behind it is fine and for all intensive purposes the rest of the trailer and the horses are fine. I am floored and have no idea what to tell Chelsea (this rig is BRAND NEW). She walks out of the gas station then and I look up. The only thing I can think to say is, " Ok, Chelsea, don't panic." Gee, thats inspiring. What do most people do when you say that? So you can guess what follows. I ask her to slowly come look at the trailer and tell me whats missing. At first she doesn't see it, but then she does and she makes this interesting strangled noise. I still to this day can't begin to imitate it, but it's what I would have done in the same situation.

Now we are stuck in a gas station, on Jellico, on a Sunday night, in February, with no tire. At first we think its ok. At least we have a spare.  Then we realize, because the tire apparently decided to dramatically rip away from the trailer and leave the bolts...they are melted/seared/stuck on the drum (not sure if its called a drum, but ya get the idea) and we cannot no matter how hard both of us try get them loosened and off. We still think we are ok, because Chelsea has US Rider. (Another aside here. Since this situation and another that I was in with a trailer I have since decided US Rider sucks and will never use it) US Rider is like AAA for horse people- since AAA doesn't help trailers (annoying). So we call US Rider. What ensues is Chelsea screaming at the dispatcher because its a Sunday night, on Jellico and they can't possibly find someone to help us (they have a 24hr guarantee- yea right), so we will have to wait till morning. Again, we aren't panicking yet. We are both on the phone with various people trying to get help and when this all fails we finally walk into the gas station to the lonely clerk ( who in the end was our saviour). She tells us that theres this guy at the truck stop down the road, we can call him, he will fix it. So we call, Ed (not his real name since I try to block this whole painful experience out of my head I don't remember it- and well my memory is crap). Ed tells us he will meet us at the station, which is good because neither of us want to move the rig.

An hour later Ed shows up. We had been sitting inside in the booths of an Arbys attached to this station watching for him because it was cold. Out of this old oil covered pickup steps a 65+ yr old man who looks like he's half-starved and had stepped straight off the set of Deliverance. He walks up to the trailer and pets the horses noses and stares at the tire (well what was left) and scratches his head. This is very inspiring when your cold and all you want to do is get home. We go talk to him. He tells us he thinks he can fix it but its gonna take awhile. We might as well go inside and stay warm. What follows is 5 excruciating hours of Ed fighting with those bolts, leaving, coming back with new tools, leaving again...coming back.... using power tools.....SMOKING by the GAS pump...WTF<---- I thought when he did that while he was standing there staring at the pieces of the bolts and petting the horses that Chelsea was finally gonna blow a gasket. I didn't think either of us could take much more. He switches between telling us we have to wait till morning and that he can fix it, although at one point he was so red in the face we both thought we would also be calling an ambulance. And all the while he refused help from, "us Ky girls".

In the end, Ed gets the spare tire on the trailer. We spent 7 hours sitting in those booths of the closed Arbys. The horses, bless House and Cam for being super troopers for standing on that trailer the whole time (there was nowhere to unload and walk them) and then for not colicing the minute we got home. And we finally at about 4:30AM left the little gas station that was our home overnight and limped home slowly...(it took us almost 4 hours because we were terrified to drive fast). Both of us were zombies at our respective jobs and I ended up pulling a huge muscle in my back from sitting in a plastic fast food restaurant booth for 7 hours, that and the stress of having almost unknowingly thrown us off the side of a mountain because we were cruisin with a missing tire.

SO, next time someone flashes their headlights at you, take the time to think about why have done this....and no its not the urban myth that a gang is coming to shoot you....

signing off~Mandy