It’s Harold’s birthday and we are driving 700 miles to help him celebrate.

On Thursday morning Eddie put the sorrel gelding and the black mare in the back of our big horse trailer. There were 12 bales of hay in the first stall and two more in stall number four. That means we can be gone from home 14 bales!

The camper is stuffed with equal amounts of clothes and food. My husband and I have not been on a trail trip since our return last fall from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We tried to get away all summer but for some reason it just didn’t work out.

Elaine sent us an email about a month ago inviting us to go to Troy, Alabama, to the Heart of Dixie Horse Camp. Lots of friends were coming to rejoice with Harold on his 60th birthday. On a grander scale, the family is so thankful that the operation on the retina of Harold’s eye is successful this time. A couple of years ago, Harold’s other eye had not regained sight after surgery.

With the prospect of total blindness looming as a result of this retina problem, Harold faithfully did every possible thing he could do to retain his sight. He was instructed to not ride his wonderful Peruvian Paso horses, so Harold did not ride. Now he is improved and he can see again.

The celebration is done with gratitude and thankfulness.
We left Bear Creek, 20 miles from Huntington, West Virginia. I can’t relax yet. Eddie has been very kind to me because he knows I get so nervous preparing for a big trip.

The only time I heard him angry today was at my black mare because she wouldn’t stand still to get snapped in the trailer tie.

We worked like beavers for two weeks and still we left an hour late. At least nobody else is involved and it is a self-made departure time.

Map Quest says the trip will be 680 miles. We have reservations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at East Ridge Stables where Kathy Brock will furnish us a stall for $20 per horse. That seems a little steep, but we have not found any other place in that area. We are thankful that we could make the connection.

The truck has new tires, oil change, and all of the amber lights now burn. Eddie swept the hay out of the truck floor and seats. We made a real mess of the truck when we were hauling load after load of the sweet hay to store in every building, barn, empty stall and trailer available. It was finally a good year for hay, but the spring was so wet that we missed going traveling because we kept waiting for the fields to dry up enough to cut the hay in the little bottoms along Bear Creek.

The trailer has two full tanks of propane and the right amount of air in all of the tires.

This is like a trial run for us to see if we can travel all alone and go to Montana with our horses! We would like to be gone from first hay cutting finished until time for the second cutting of hay.

Eddie had promised to drive slower. He is such an experienced driver that he is not capable of driving like an old man--never mind driving like an old woman.

Eventually we arrive at Jellico Mountain, Tennessee. I have heard of it since Ed’s first Smoky Mountain ride. It is long and steep. Real long and steep. On our first three trips, the highway was under construction. Sometimes we were stopped to wait almost an hour.

The Powerstroke is stroking as Ed tries to maintain momentum, which is Ed’s excuse for keeping the pedal to the metal. Well, there are the road construction signs. A big yellow rig passed us on the right going 65 or 70. Ed laughed when a truck pulled over in front of Ol’ Yeller and he had to hit the brakes. Soon the road was clean again. Ol’ Yeller was blasting up the long hill.

"He’s empty!" Ed decided as an explanation of Ol’ Yeller’s ability to smoke everything on the road.

"A man could get a nose bleed up here, couldn’t he," came a voice over the Citizens Band Radio.

Ed looked to the right at the far ridges and said, "I’d like to ride all of that."

Every ridge called Eddie. He loved to ride horses so much. I yawned to unstop my ears as we haul along the ridges of Northeast Tennessee.

"Somebody had a flat tire there. A man and a woman," Eddie tells me. I look at the woman in the sweat suit watching traffic while the man is on his knees changing the tire. I was immensely thankful that we were not in those circumstances.

Several years ago we had a big, black duelly truck that topped a great mountain at the speed of eight miles per hour. The carbeurator had gone bad. I had visions of me standing beside the Interstate holding a stallion and two mares while Eddie worked on the truck. When we got home we went truck shopping and soon we were on the road again in a new white dually.

Between the ridge tops, I get a glimpse of the farmland and houses very far below.

"That truck must be heavy," I commented as we approached the lead of a long line of big trucks.

"It is probably a big generator or something going to Iraq," Ed added. The invasion of Iraq had been very recent and lots of GI vehicles were on the highway.

I tried using my wonderful new Compaq computer, but ever sort of weird stuff kept happening because the road is so bumpy and my thumb and fingers kept bouncing on keys all over the place. I finally closed it out and turned it off and reached for the old ball point pen and the spiral binder that I always have at hand.

Five hours on the road and we are at MP 137 near LaFollette, just 3 miles from Cumberland Gap.

Eddie is driving with the window down because the air conditioner isn’t working. As I write, a wisp of gray hair dances on my cheek. He had taken it to the garage and had freeon gas added to the air conditioning unit, but we could not see any improvement for very long. Oh well, it is not really hot. We’ll worry about air conditioning next spring. We might have traded trucks by then.

Ed and I are in our 60’s but that doesn’t interfere with our horseback riding.

For the sixth time I got my long, red watermelon pocket knife out of the glove compartment. I love those knives and buy every one I see at a flea market. This is the first time I had seen a red one. Now I was determined that it prove useful in order to justify my purchase at the flea market a month ago. I cut the end off two bananas and handed one to Ed. When we travel with friends, we stop and eat at a restaurant. When it is just us, we eat as we travel.

Going around Knoxville was uneventful--if you don’t count lots and lots of traffic and the right shoulder closed for construction.

I am a very good navigator because of the extensive driving vacations my parents took me on as a child. I was an only child and we took a week or two every year driving around the United States. I was in 48 states and Canada and Mexico before I was 21 years old. I don’t remember ever being unable to read a map.

At Mile Post 60 we stop for fuel and a man walked over and asked if he could look at the horses. He had just bought a black and while walker filly.

It is seven hours to MP 44, just before Chattanooga. Several places indicate campgrounds, but we don’t know if they permit horses. The GPS shows it is 398 miles, we had 7:04 hours moving time with 54 minutes stopped.

The drive down was so successful that we were in Chattanooga by 3 PM. I was unsure which way to turn off Exit 1 of I-75. I chose left and immediately decided it was really a right turn. Ed stopped at a gas station and we were advised to turn around. The remainder of our instructions were to the letter.

Soon we were sitting in the barn lot of East Ridge Stables but we couldn’t find anybody. Eddie found two clean stalls with lots of fresh shavings and I put in a call to Kathy Brock. She told us to put our horses in the stall and she would be there in 15 minutes.

I was in Dusty’s stall trying to comb the knots out of his beautiful flaxen mane when a very pretty blonde, who appeared to be in her 30’s, soon arrived.

After Kathy introduced herself, she asked, "Have you ever tried WD 40 on manes before?"

"No, but I am willing to try anything. We didn’t have time to make him pretty before we left home and I ran off and left the conditioner," I told her.

"I have some if you want to try it," she offered.

"Sure. I need all of the help I can get." After a few squirts it got much easier. Soon I had a big pile of flax horse hair. I don’t really worry about so much of it coming out because I know it is several day’s worth of shedding.

Kathy said, "I need to see your coggins papers."

"I’ll get them," I said as I turned to the truck to retrieve the envelope of papers from the glove compartment.

I returned and handed them to the woman, who gave them a scan and returned them to Eddie.

"Let me go ahead and pay you for the board for the horses now. We might leave in the morning before you get here," my husband told her as he pulled out a couple of $20 bills.

Kathy left to do the barn chores and eventually drove off with a friend to go for supper.

It wasn’t long before another couple drove in and came over to talk and look at our horses. Amy was pleased that we had Tennessee Walking horses because that is what she owns.

"About everybody here has quarter horses," she said, looking over at the young man with her.

I continued the gentle jabbing. "There are only two kinds of people. Those who own a walker and those who have never ridden one!"

The young couple soon went to saddle their horses for a short trail ride.

“Eddie, why don’t you saddle my mare and ride with them? She hasn’t been ridden in so long, I would rather you ride off some of that feisty stuff.” I asked.

After feeding and watering the horses, we went into the trailer and had turkey sandwiches.