Good-bye World

Dear World,
Thank you so much for coming to Lexington for the World Equestrian Games.  Thank you for spending so many fun-filled weeks here, bringing your gorgeous horses and making Lexington the coolest place to be on the planet!  It was a great time. 



Driving World Championship

 Thank you, as well, for telling us how nice we Kentuckians are and how genuine that nice-ness was.  I think you are certainly nice, too, for noticing and for saying so over and over again!  You were a lot of fun and reminded me that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the U.S.  If you hadn't been here, I probably wouldn't have ridden my bike out Legacy Trail four times (!) or even gone to the Horse Park once before the end of the year, much less 6 times in two weeks. 

When you told us you were going to come visit four years ago, I never really believed that World Equestrian Games would live up to the hype.  In actuality, you vastly exceeded every expectation I had.

Again, World, thank you for coming.  I hope you have safe travels home and will come back to see us again soon.  We'll miss you!

With Best wishes,
Gwen

Hooray for Fall Break!!



Destination Lunch...



Fall Break....fall break...fall break!!!!  I have four children upstairs sleeping in on a Wednesday that I shall soon roust from bed, feed some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and force to go hiking in the Gorge today.  Yippee!!!   We're going to hunt for an "unofficial" trail called Indian Staircase that I haven't hiked since 1994.  There's a good chance we'll be hiking a different trail as my map-reading skills aren't always the best.  Probably it's a good thing, I have GPS in my car...

Technically, it's a "WEG Break", but we're making it a Gorge Break today (We'll be back out at the Games on Friday and Sunday).  And, if everybody's really nice and doesn't fall off any cliffs today we're going to Miguel's Pizza for lunch in Slade.  Miguel's is a super kooky little restaurant/climber rendez-vous joint with cars from all over the Northern Hemisphere in the parking lot.  I love just walking around checking out all the license plates.  Most of the time there are more out-of-state plates than in-state, with travellers coming from all over to climb and hike the Gorge. 

Four-legged celebrity alert

FYI...the horse that starred in Hidalgo as well as the horse that stars in Secretariat and Dreamer were both in town yesterday for the World Equestrian games.  They were here for some horse training demos at the Convention Center held in conjunction with WEG.  A friend of mine saw them yesterday. 
(And, he also bought a memory foam saddlepad for his horse.  Wow, that is one lucky horse -- a tempurpedic saddlepad.  Talk about things coming a long way.)

I wonder if celebrity movie star horses have special requests like no brown M & Ms...

Spotlight Lexington

Happy Saturday.  I have a house full of guests!  Again!  Love it!  Some of whom came for WEG, some of whom came for a sleepover, and some just using us as way station while driving to Florida (but they're going to go to WEG while they are here).  Marc went out early and we have a huge box of carbs for our guests from Magee's Bakery -- my favorite including almond croissants!--and reported in that Magee's was full of Europeans.  Some Frenchies were standing at the counter holding a giant cinnamon bun while rapidly speaking French.  I wondered if they were questioning the quality of American pastry but he thinks they were yammering that "no wonder Americans are so freaking fat!!  Look at the size of this thing!"

Laura Bell Bundy at Spotlight Lexington in very short dress

Here's a picture from our great adventure last night.  As part of the World Equestrian Games, Lexington is hosting Spotlight on Lexington -- a festival of art and music.  We've had some great talent in town and last night we just had to go see Laura Bell Bundy (Broadway star -- Hairspray, Legally Blonde -- turned country music wannabe star).  There was a great crowd and the critical review of Laura Bell Bundy from my party of girls was that her dress was really short and they wished she were singing Broadway Show tunes.  Okay, really. that was just Mary Rollins and me wishing for Broadway show tunes.  After all, why would you want to be anything but a Broadway star?   For Seth Rudetsky fans (you know who you are) we think she's a head singer.

All in all, it was fun!  We stayed for three of her songs, pet the mounted police horses, MR's BFF stepped in some horse manure that was in the street -- one of the downsides of being "The Horse Capitol of the World", and went home to our little abode. 

Have I mentioned that anyone who lives within a day's driving distance to Lexington and doesn't come for the World Equestrian Games is missing the opportunity of a lifetime? 

The World Equestrian Games -- Day 6?

I know, it's Friday and you've been dying for a new blog post all week and been wondering why the heck I haven't written anything.  Who would've imagined that I would have been out at the World Equestrian Games almost everyday (except Monday which was raining but a really fun day anyway -- saving that for another post).

These aren't our actual bikes, however, we \
did ride bikes out there.  THREE TIMES!!

I think I'm officially a WEG addict.  My beloved sister (aka Mere) from SC has been in town since last Friday night (and we had Isabug here over the weekend too and are now missing her soooo much) and after the kids leave for school, we keep finding ourselves at the World Equestrian Games.  Tuesday, it started as a morning bike ride activity on the new Legacy Trail.  The next thing you know, there we are credit cards in hand at the Horse Park gates buying our $25 grounds passes to the park.  It was only 10 a.m. and it did seem like a shame to ride our bikes all the way out there and not actually go in.



Pretty horses...

 Wednesday, we're back again.  This time with tickets to Grand Prix Dressage courtesy of my mom and dad who wanted to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the World Equestrian games.  They so nicely told me to buy tickets to any event that we wanted to go to for both of my sisters and for them.  (Silly me, I should have bought the $600 tickets to the Maker's Mark Pavilion).  Dressage looked to be at the best time for our schedule and it was fantastic to watch.  In retrospect, it was the perfect contrast to the Reining Championships we went to over the weekend! 

The California Cowgirls...their show is AWESOME!

Before we even left on Wednesday, we already decided to give in to the draw of the Games and come back on Thursday.  Maybe it was the opportunity to see the California Cowgirls.  Or, the Double Dans.  There's just so much to do and so much to see.  It's absolutely irresistible!

a little post about WEG -- the Endurance Race

This morning's newspaper had a nice article about the 100 mile endurance race.  Apparently, only about 40% of the participants have finished the race in previous World Championships.  They are hoping that 50% finish it this year.  And, I also heard that the Sheik (i.e. King) of Dubai is on his country's team.  You can't really watch any of the event though because the route goes through people's farms,

Endurance sounds so cool to me.  I'm thinking like the movie Hidalgo cool except without the horses dying.  When I was a kid, riding horses out on Delong Road, I used to like to pretend that I was endurance rider...or a pony express rider.  Sometimes, I'd ride my horse down to the mailbox and pick up the mail for my mom.

Oh...and this is apparently true, a man called the Altech WEG people to ask how he could enter his horse for the Endurance Race.  Too funny.