Poplar Place... and a tour of the South

Hi everyone! I know I was a bit delayed with the second blog, but we have been very busy here at Angelica getting ready for the first show of the year – Poplar Place! I have a personal soft spot for Poplar, since I am from Area III and have had more than one move up there. Consequently, when Skye entered Tika in the I/P, and Connor entered Bruno in the P/T, I was thrilled to be able to cheer! I hold my role as team optimist and cheerleader very seriously. So, I got up at 3am on Saturday with Sallie and we made the drive to Poplar. The drive went really well going there, we even stopped and ate at good ole’ Waffle House. When we got to Poplar, it was POURING. We hung out with Skye and Connor until they gave the all clear, and we headed out to warm up. Both Tika and Bruno (Piece of Hope) looked great. Tika was rocking out a rubber snaffle, which – for anyone who knows Tika – is an accomplishment in itself.

Both of their tests were lovely! Connor is just starting his partnership with Bruno, but Sallie has been kicking our a**es over here in Aiken, and it paid off for Connor – he got a 20 and started in the lead! Skye has been working hard on keeping Tika in that calm, quiet rhythm, and it really showed in the ring. Tika has had almost 6 months off, so seeing her knock out some beautiful mediums and float through her lateral work left everyone smiling. It was a great day for Angelica Run! The rain returned, so show jumping was moved to the following day. Consequently, Sallie and I had no reason to stick around; my cheering was done, so we headed off.

Neither Sallie nor myself got much sleep that night, and we had been up since 3am. We were both feeling a bit under the weather, and just wanted to get home and get some sleep. We were having a pretty decent drive, except that every gas station we pulled into was out of gas. Literally. We were getting REALLY low when we found a large Shell station, so we hopped off the interstate and went in (any readers familiar with the Fort Benning exit?!). The lady behind the counter immediately barked, “Oh honey – I ain’t got anything but what you see in this store!” “So, you have no fuel?” “No baby, nothing.” I thought Sallie might tackle this woman in our exhausted frustration, so I shuffled her out, and we went down the road to a station that did have gas. We filled up, hopped back on the interstate, and got settled into our trip. It was the darndest thing, though, because her in-dash GPS told us to get off on this random highway exit. I checked the google maps on my phone to confirm that exit wouldn’t take us anywhere, so Sallie told the GPS it was a stupid wench, and turned it off. Mistake one.

We drove for a couple hours. The sun was shining, it reached 78 degrees and we worried if the horses in Aiken were too hot, and I did a little rendition of “Here Comes the Sun,” complete with clapping. In the midst of my joy and delirium, Sallie suddenly grabbed my arm, turned white, and said, “Kristin... where are we?” “Well I am not sure exactly, let me check my phone.” And so I pulled up my google maps on my iPhone, which had our beautiful path in blue, and I waited for that blinking blue light to show up that indicates our exact location. “Hmmmm, we must not have good satellite, one second….I am waiting for the blinking blue thing to show up.” So I waited, and waited, and then suddenly the panic Sallie was in hit me. WHERE WERE WE? So I silently zoomed out, nothing. I zoomed out more, nothing. I zoomed out more, and saw the perimeter of our blinking dot. OH GOD. I zoomed out more. Here is what I saw:

I didn’t know how to tell Sallie, so I didn’t. I just had a nervous breakdown. In reality, I sat there rocking back and forth, repeating, “I just can’t do this…” while Sallie yelled, “WHERE ARE WE?!?!” In my mind, I simply unbuckled my seat belt, took a deep breath, opened the door, and hurled myself into ongoing traffic at 80 miles an hour. When I finally snapped out of it and told Sallie that we were somehow in Montgomery, Alabama, we turned around. I think we were both so delirious and tired it was just too much. We turned back on the dashboard GPS. As soon as we were going the right direction, we saw the dark clouds and the temperature dropped, and we took a deep breath and prepared for the drive. An hour later, we saw a STUPID “Welcome to Georgia!” sign. I wanted to DIE. When we got back to the Poplar exit, this storm hit that was so awful we could barely see, but Sallie and I just wanted to get home! Mistake two. We thought we heard some kind of bells, but also knew we were going insane. We passed a cop hiding under an overpass, and said, “What a wuss!!! Can’t even drive in the rain!” I then commented that it was like, totally, almost tornado weather, and wouldn’t that be something?!?!?! TOO BAD IT WAS:



OMG WE WERE SO STUPID. Somehow we managed to not, ya know, die, so we chugged along to Atlanta. When we got there, we decided to eat at Waffle House, again. We walked in looking like two chicks that had been on a meth binge for three days, and ordered our food. I ordered the steak and eggs. “Hash browns or grits?” “Hashbrowns.” “How would you like your steak?” “Medium.” “How would you like your eggs?” “I GET EGGS!!!!!??” She just stared at me. Somehow when I ordered the steak and eggs, I forgot there were… eggs. Our waitress did not find this amusing. We did get our food, it was amazing. We tore it down, and then promptly went into food comas. Sallie was slumped over in her baseball cap, and I had to tap her to make sure she stayed conscious. The waitress and other patrons just stared. WE were actually the weirdos in Waffle House.

Among a million other awkward and comedic and tragic moments, we finally made it home. 747 miles later. THINK ABOUT THAT. It should have been a 450 mile day. We were so tired, and so gross, and all Sallie could say by the time we reached our exit in Aiken was, “KRISTIN, we just traveled over ten hours…………AND WITH NO SNACKS!” Ain’t that the truth.

Skye and Connor both did amazing clean show jumping rounds, and clean cross country. They had to go slow since the ground was half washed away. Bruno and Tika are officially in their 2012 season, and the rest of us will enter it shortly! As for Sunday, Sallie and I slept.

Holla at our troops abroad! We are honored to have you as readers! :)

Aching in Aiken

Helloooooo world!!!!! I am so excited to be taking over the Angelica Run blog. This is Kristin Carpenter reporting, and I have (terrifyingly) been given free rein. Remember that promise, Skye!!

Angelica had a 2011 full of extreme highs and extreme lows. On the low side, our farm flooded and we lost everything in September. It was actually in the middle of the American Eventing Championships. That was a huge blow to the program, but the team rallied together and rebuilt the farm in record time.

After a 6th place finish at the AECs in Intermediate, my horse, Trance, got Tildren in preparation for Fair Hill. He had a rare reaction to the drug that sent him into full renal failure, and he spent 18 days in ICU and lost over 200 pounds. We lost out hope of a Fall two star, but he is now back in work and stronger than ever. If Angelica is anything, it is a resilient team!

We had a lot of highs. We had multiple wins and top three placings at every level. We had four riders debut at the international level, and all with great success! We made the summer trip to Bromont and had a wonderful time. But most of all, we had a great year of memories. Part of eventing is dealing with the good moments and the bad. We all had those "perfect" runs, and we all also had those shows where we did dressage in a monsoon to get a 47, then pulled three rails in the mud pit, then finally finished on a high with a great XC run only to miss the finish flags like an idiot. Or wait, maybe that was just me. REGARDLESS, Angelica is there for each other when we need to cry, and certainly when we need to laugh.

We just made the trek to our home at Pony Up South in Aiken. We have a private farm with a jump and dressage ring, track, and a ton of turnout. Life is FABULOUS! Angelica has a lot of hope for this season, and we are working hard on making those dreams come true.

Aiken has great weather, lovely footing, close events, WAFFLE HOUSE, and tons of eventers. It also has some…well….peculiarities. For instance, when we did a run to the trash today, there was a very old man in front of us dumping his truck. I thought the oddest part was his camouflage cell phone holder mixed with his frat shirt, until we noticed the missing thumb….but no. The oddest part was that his bags and bags of "trash" appeared to be full of squirrels. Dead squirrels. Now, we are deducing this based off the fluffily squirrel tail sticking out of a bag. The motives for this circumstance are endless.

Aiken also brings out some of the stupid in our horses. A horse that is to remain nameless was turned out with my two. Trance has a habit of going into the field every day and galloping a few laps. Literally, every day. We don't even condition him because he knocks out a good 12 minutes of canter a day, then takes a nap in the middle of the field. Well, this poor new pasture partner thought he would like to try and keep up with Tranceypants. Not only is Trance extremely fast, but he is very agile. Trance and "Nameless" were thus on lap one, when Trance turned right. Poor Nameless Horse tried so hard to make the turn, but instead flipped legs up into the air and went THUD onto the ground, then slid a solid twelve feet! He looked like a giant upside down tortoise. We were worried he might be….well….dead…when he suddenly jumped up and scurried off. The kicker was that he LITERALLY fell out of his blanket! He jumped up and ran off, but the blanket was in a heap on the ground, leg straps and all! Reminded me of those Youtube videos of people getting hit by something and literally knocked out their shoes. No worries, Nameless is doing just fine, but he has given up hope of keeping up with Trance in the AM conditioning sessions.

Stay tuned…..this is sure to be a great year!