Mia's first show Pt 1

I have been really excited for Mia's first show, there has been a lot of work put into her for this big debut and I really wanted everything go to well.  When I got my ride times on Friday, our first class wasn't until noon.  That is awesome, not only do I get to sleep in, but I can even bathe her on Sunday and not worry about having a filthy mess of a mare if I bathed on Saturday!  I spent Saturday loading most of my trailer and cleaning my tack.  Because, you know, you should really only clean your tack within 24 hours of a horse show.

Sunday I got up at 4a to go to the bathroom and horse brain said OMG HORSE SHOW! TIME TO GET UP!!  Body said Hey Brain, screw off, we get to sleep 3 more hours, go to bed.  It actually took a while to get back to sleep and I didn't sleep deeply before the alarm finally went off at 7a.  Time for a horse show!  I got up, fed the horses, fed the animals, ate breakfast and was ready to start getting everything ready at 745a.  Win!  I was rocking it!  I pulled the truck up and hooked up the trailer, I had to pull forward a half inch to drop the latch as the ball was just a smidge too far back on the tongue.  As I pulled forward, my foot went to the floor and I heard a slight *psssssstttt*.  O. M. F. G.  I pressed the brake again to make sure and yes, there was zero brake pressure and most definitely a hissing noise, that noise would be a popped brake line.  What now?!?!

SO was outside at this point and we confirmed that yes, a brake line blew out, I certainly can't haul with it now!  I was racing through thoughts of other alternatives when SO suggested I take The Van, well it should work right?  "The Van" is a 9 passenger GMC Savannah that he very recently bought for his own hobby, it is technically a 1/2 ton truck with a van body and CAN haul, we just haven't actually done it yet.  And it isn't wired for a 7 wire plug.  And it doesn't have a brake controller.  Yikes!!

Desperate times call for desperate measures however and my only options at 815a on a Sunday were to use The Van or scratch the show.  It wasn't that expensive of a show if I ended up scratching but I had been looking forward to going for a good while now.  SO was nice enough to make the decision for me and said if I was comfortable hauling without trailer brakes, he would get the van set up to haul us.  Well, okay then!  I have hauled in much, much, much worse rigs than I have now, no trailer brakes?  Heck, that would be like when I would haul my 2 horse trailer with a Jeep Cherokee but only better because The Van was bigger and heavier.  (Yes, yes I really did haul the App in an old 2 horse trailer with a straight 6 Cherokee with no trailer brakes.  For over a year in fact until SO hauled with me ONCE and said I wasn't allowed to ever do it again)  He drove off to (who knows what store) to get an additional ball since the trailer's ball sits on a hitch with a 5 inch drop, needless to say the van doesn't need that!  While he did that, I got to bathing and braiding.

Bathing was a fast affair, I cheated and used the EZ-All bath spray again and got her mostly clean.  For her first official bath, she did pretty well.  No dancing or anything, once she realized I would let her eat grass if she stood still, still is what she decided she wanted to do.  Good mare!  After a quick bath it was time to start braiding. My fingers definitely do NOT remember how to braid dressage braids!  It has only been over 5 years since I put them on the App, I guess I need to brush up on my skillz :)  I started braiding when SO got back and brought the van up to the garage to get it ready.  I was almost done when he was finished, he successfully hill-billy wired it for a 7 way plug, got the new ball on a 2 inch rise hitch and we hooked The Van up to the trailer.  He is so awesome in doing all this frantic work for me, he is such a good guy!

RB4 arrived and helped me get the last of everything ready, we wrapped up Mia, loaded up some water, grabbed directions and off we went.  With everything that happened, we were only running 20 minutes late from my planned departure time!!  I have not been more thankful for always being so early for things haha, I would still have 40 minutes before my ride time when I got there!  The first few stops weren't bad though we had to run the first stop light we came to that had a very fast yellow.  Thankfully we were still out of town and nothing bad happened as a result, it made me slow way down at stop lights though.  We got to the event with 45 minutes left before my ride time, time to get the party started!