The Long Journey

After show jumping on Sunday, Jessica went back to London with her parents and headed back to the States to start getting the barn at home back together. Trevor and I went back to David Green’s farm with Jess Phoenix and Amanda and their horses Tucker and Digby. I think to say that we were all tired would be a great injustice to the daze we were all in when we got back to Maisey Manor Sunday evening! David O’Connor and our awesome vet Christiana Ober came back to the farm Sunday evening too and we all enjoyed some take-out Chinese in David and Jackie’s living room and watched this year’s Badminton coverage on the big-screen. No evening of television at David’s house is complete until the TiVo plays “Sex on Fire”, the Kings of Leon song from X-Factor (it’s England’s version of American Idol). I have to find that video on YouTube and post a link here… it’s absolutely incredible!!! I don’t know who that guy is, but he can seriously sing!!! So after our Badminton and X-Factor fix, we all went to bed early and I slept harder than I’ve slept in a very long time. It was so great!

Monday, all of us girls left at the farm did a lot of hand-walking to stretch our tired ponies’ legs and we watched a lot of movies. J We went into Marlborough to get breakfast at the Polly Tea Room. That’s one place I’m going to miss! And we stopped by the Waitrose to buy carrots for the boys. Amanda and I re-packed our equipment to be ready to ship out and head home.
Tuesday morning, the truck from Peden Bloodstock came by to take me and the three horses I shipped out to Stansted Airport. So the girls helped me load Trevor, Parker (Madison Park), and Madeline (Holly Payne’s mare) and all of our equipment and we headed out. We got to the FedEx loading dock about 3 hours after leaving the farm but still about 6 hours before the horses’ plane was scheduled to leave. So we got comfortable in the lorry and waited for the other horses to arrive. We put a total of 9 horses on the flight. We had Trevor, Parker, Madeline, Ernie (Pawlow), Arthur, a gorgeous gray Irish horse named Reggie, a random Irish horse that nobody knew anything about, and 2 Grand Prix show jumpers. Suzanne, Will Faudree’s groom, and I helped the Pedens agents load the equipment onto the kit and we loaded all of the horses into their palates. Getting to be part of the whole shipping process, even though they couldn’t get me on the flight with the horses, was so very cool. I learned a lot about the process and what has to be done to ship the horses. I got to go with them into the warehouse to get the palates weighed and then got to see them to their plane. Once the horses were loaded safely on their flight, which was to leave at 11pm James, the greatest shipping agent ever, drove me to Heathrow and got me a hotel room for a few hours so that I could rest for a bit and have a shower before going to catch my own flight.

I was up at 3:45 this morning (local time in London) to catch the 4:19 bus to Terminal 3 to check in for my flight. I flew out at 6:40am on Scandinavian Airlines from London to Copenhagen, Denmark. I know that I only got to see the airport, but it was actually really cool getting to be in Denmark for a few hours! I had a window seat on the way to Copenhagen and it was so neat watching the countries pass below (flying in a cloudless sky has its advantages!). There were so many absolutely gorgeous islands and we mostly followed the coastline of the European mainland. The airport was very near the coast, and as we were landing you could see the most amazing landscape and greenery… definitely something like I’ve never seen before. And there was a huge bridge that went from the island of Denmark and seemed to disappear into the ocean completely.

I spent about 4 hours in the airport there before boarding my flight for Newark. As I am typing, the flight-map says that we are just off the coast of Greenland right now. This plane has cameras on the nose and underneath the plane so that we can watch on our personal screens the scenery that we are passing. It’s so cool! There is also a great selection of movies and music on our screens. J Right now we are above some clouds, so there is not much to see on the “downward view” camera, but when we get over the mainland of Greenland we should be able to see.

So I should be at Newark Airport by 2:45 Eastern Time. This is shaping up to be the longest day EVER! Haha! I have already been up for 12 hours (as of when I’m typing, not when I’m able to post this update seeing as how I don’t have internet on the plane… I’m typing on Word and saving…) and it’s only 9:30 at home. I’m going to be ready for bed at like 4:00 this afternoon! Talk about messing up your sleep pattern! I’m really excited to get back to the States though. J Can’t wait to see my family, friends, dog, horses, and go to an Auburn Football game!!! I will be hanging out in Newark until Thursday night though. Kyle is flying up and we will go back to Gladstone to get Kyle’s trailer and then drive to upstate NY to get Trevor and Parker out of quarantine and then make the LONG drive South. I should be home a bit before the sun comes up on Saturday. J It’s been incredible for sure! Glad to go home but can’t believe it’s almost over.