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April 17, 2015: Thelma and Louise Reincarnated

The day’s plan was this – Pam and I were to go and pick up her horse Blessi, put him in her trailer, and drive to Bellingham. Once there, we’d drop him off at Hestafolk Icelandic regional club member Lisa McKeen’s place, and then we’d go and get a motel. (Earlier, Pam had made reservations.) Tomorrow, Saturday, we’d retrieve Mr. B and go a dressage clinic.

It was a day when the best laid plans went awry. We got to the boarding stable, and then loaded up the horse, saddle, and other gear into the trailer. We then left the boarding stable, our immediate destination being the ferry to Edmunds, our later destination being Bellingham.




A few miles out and a woman driver in the adjacent lane pulled up next to Pam and honked her car horn. Both Pam and the other driver rolled down their windows. The woman in the other vehicle said that the trailer break lights were out. Pam said thank you, and pulled into an Albertson’s grocery store parking lot. I then got out of the truck – Pam had me check the brakes. I told her that the left side brake light was out, but that the right side brake light was working. We weren’t able to find anything wrong. So finally we erred on the side of safety and took Blessi back to the boarding stable. We left him and the trailer there, and then continued on to Bellingham.

I was originally to ride Blessi in tomorrow’s dressage clinic. Pam surmised that I might ride one of Kathy Lockerbie’s horses. I indicated that I was flexible, even though I had my heart set on riding Blessi. I rode him on Tuesday and felt very comfortable and safe. He is, after all, a very well trained dressage horse.

We ended up travelling on the Interstate on the worst day of the week, at the worst time of day. The traffic was horrific. We ground to a stop several times. If we hadn’t had the trailer snafu, we would have gotten ahead of it. The one saving grace was that there were two of us, so we were able to whiz along in the carpool lane.

Kathy, who is Pam’s good friend and an Icelandic horse owner, got a hold of us as we were coming into Bellingham. We met her, her daughter Helen, and her daughter’s boyfriend Colten at the Red Robin, where we had dinner. The two young people were extremely congenial. I talked with both at length. It was an instance in which I felt as though I had stepped forward in time, having been trapped for an indeterminate amount of time in the Alaskan deep freeze. Both Colten and Helen are technologically savvy – more so than I will ever be. And both are wanting to go on and work in fields that are reflective of this – he’s wanting to become a computer programmer and she’s wanting to become a librarian.

We finally called it a night and headed for the motel. Tomorrow promises to be another interesting day.

Next: 101. 4/18/15: Kathy Lockerbie’s Place

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