Last Sunday, Ace and I started cleaning and loading down the
living quarters of the trailer pretty early in the morning. After hours of cleaning, we went
to his sister’s (Kailey Leske) house.
She had told us to pack as much as we could in the morning, because we
needed to block off Sunday afternoon to hang out at their house before we were
absent for the entire summer. We
were told to wear something “cute casual” but we were clueless as to what the
plans for the afternoon were, so Ace and I thought we were taking family
pictures again.
As we drove up to Kailey’s house, we noticed a bunch of
vehicles and knew that she had something up her sleeve. We arrived to find that our family and
friends had gathered together to throw us a surprise send-off for our summer
travels! They had gifted us with
gift cards for our travels and an awesome digital camera to help document our
summer. It was the perfect Sunday
afternoon surprise and we will be forever thankful for the gratitude of the
individuals we are blessed to call our family and friends!
Em made us the perfect card!!
How cute are these cowboy cookies!?
Monday morning, we continued packing the trailer and finally
finished shortly after noon. After
loading everything we needed for our travels, we loaded everything we needed
for the horses. We finally hit the
road about 5pm on Monday and we stopped at Buc-ee’s one last time before
leaving Texas (Ace is obsessed with their sliced sausage sandwhiches!).
Ace had some ropes shipped to Bloomer Trailers and we
wouldn’t make it to Salado before they closed for the day, so they placed his
box outside for us to pick up along the way. When we opened the box, we found some Bloomer hats to sport
this summer, along with an awesome card of encouragement! Thank you, Bloomer Trailers!!
We made a pit-stop at Slovacek’s in
West, TX and got some kolaches and other snacks for our drive. Our first destination is North Platte, NE and we figured we should make the trip in two days.
We stayed in Denton on Monday night and would travel the rest of the way to North Platte, NE on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning, we woke up pretty early and had breakfast
at Cracker Barrel. Ace wanted to use the selfie-stick that was given to us by Kahlei Matejek, and the checker board outside of Cracker Barrel was his scene of choice!
We utilized our
first gift card from our send-off party….Thanks Cliff and Brynn Foulds!! We picked up Cody Quaney from his house in Cheney, KS and
had a quick lunch along the way. Of course we had to take a selfie with the selfie stick, since we were reunited again!
We made camp in Gothenburg, NE and got the horses put up just before getting hit by a little
thunderstorm.
Wednesday morning, we woke up and drove about 40 miles to
North Platte, NE for the slack.
Ace warmed up Mexico, while I exercised Pork Chop. We both headed up towards the arena and
I found a spot in the stands to video from. Ace and Mexico were in the box and Ace nodded, but the gate
malfunctioned and the calf didn’t come out of the chute. Ace ran another calf at the end of the
slack, but Mexico didn’t stop correctly and walked up a few steps after Ace got
off. This made Ace have to run
farther to flank the calf and also left too much slack in the rope and it
resulted in a longer run.
Ace and I drove into town and had a quick lunch before
heading to an afternoon backyard roping jackpot. We were pretty exhausted after getting back to the fairgrounds,
so we decided to make camp and call it an early night.
We got a little more rain on Wednesday night and woke up to
pretty muddy conditions for Thursday morning’s slack.
Mexico scored good, but didn’t work as well in the field and
it made for a sloppy, muddy run.
After the slack, Cody jumped into Will Howell’s rig and Ace
and I took off in our rig towards Cheyenne, WY. We stopped about an hour outside of North Platte, NE to get a
quick lunch. I drove the remainder
of the way to Cheyenne, and I think Ace is finally getting comfortable with me driving
the rig because he kept dozing off in the passenger seat! At lunch, Ace decided that he was going
to fly from Denver, CO to Reno, NV for the Reno Rodeo – instead of driving the
whole way. We met up with
Will’s rig in Cheyenne and Ace left his rope can and boots in Will’s rig so
that he wouldn’t have to fly with them. We drove towards Colorado and Ace got me set up at a
little arena just outside of Denver.
The horses have a huge pen to themselves and I have water and
electricity. I guess this is about
as easy as it can get for my first time being alone with the horses on the
road!
This morning, we woke up at about 4:30am and headed towards
the Denver airport. I
dropped Ace off for his flight to Reno, NV. Ace’s first run at the Reno Rodeo is tonight at 7pm (PT). Since I am states away, I will be listening to the live stream of the rodeo on our iPad and cheering him on from
Colorado.
http://prorodeolive.com
Here's to a summer of fun, sun, and fast runs!
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