The Long Haul - Day Two

Rose giving kisses to
the most friendly cat ever!

Thursday morning we pried open our tired swollen eyes and drug ourselves out of our beds and headed back to the overnight barn to load Rose. She greeted us happy, content, and in one piece. She'd eaten all 5 flakes that I'd left her with overnight and was certainly in the mood for more. Before heading out we let her stretch her legs in the round pen, and she showed us her best acrobatics. This was my first time with her in a round pen, and since the purpose was to let her stretch her legs I let her play around an be silly. For one I got to watch her as a spectator and she was hilarious. After she cooled off and drank some water we were prepared to have to convince her to get on the trailer, but to our surprise Rose loaded right up.

The rest of the day went much like the previous, although she was much quieter at the rest stops. She appeared to have accepted that this was her fate and what we would be doing for the day. Driving, stopping, eating, drinking, repeat.

Um...what's this white
stuff hitting me in the face?

As soon as we crossed the Montana border, it was time for a break, so we pulled into the Lolo Pass rest stop area. To our dog's delight there was snow on the ground to roll in. To Rose's surprise there was white stuff hitting her in the face when she stuck her head out her window. She was most definitely perplexed. I know that she's seen snow before, in small amounts, but she must have forgotten about it.

We carried on without much trouble for the rest of the drive. The roads were clear and the weather was perfect for hauling. The only mishaps we had the entire trip was that the battery on our Trailer-eyes monitor camera died after one hour, thus making it useless, and on several occasions as we came to a stop and proceeded to turn our trailer's tack-room door would come open. This was a locked door by the way. It was still in the locked position when it was flinging around open. Any ideas? It's kind of a problem that needs to be fixed. Fear not though, as we were driving in caravan I would pull up next to the trailer, throw my hazards on, and my copilot KH would jump out of the car an slam it shut. No tack was lost!

Heading down the final pass.

Seven hours after leaving Spokane, we arrive at our new barn in Bozeman. Rose quietly unloaded and got busy eating her dinner in her stall for the night. Relief washed over me as I realized we were home, at long last, and the trip went off without a hitch. Hauling long distances really isn't as big a deal as I thought it might be, so long as you take plenty of breaks and don't rush.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!