Budget Fail Part 3: The Actual Horse Showing Part

Ladies and Gentlemen, this might just be the final installment of the series detailing my adventures at the December Classic Horse Show at the Carolina Horse Park . In the light of day, and with some sleep to encourage me to be reasonable, I realized how LOVELY the grounds were. The stalls are 10 by 12, larger than usual, and have rubber mats, which are a luxury not generally found at shows. Each stall has sturdy, professionally installed eye hooks for buckets, as opposed to the u-nails that someone left there in the early eighties, and two outlets which appear to actually adhere to modern electrical code, another unusual feature. The only missing feature was hot water access, which I would have greatly appreciated that morning when it was still a chilly 45 degrees and Chico needed a bath. Hot water is a very rare amenity, though, so the facility still gets a great review from me. The footing was great and the warmup area was spacious, as were the rings. Thankfully the office staff got my stabling situation sorted out such that I could stay where I had camped the night before, and I let them know about my grooming stall since I am no good with deception.

It is at this point I check in on the rings and realize that I need approximately one more hour to prepare to go in the ring than I actually have available to me, because entries to the show were very very low and thus the rings were running faster than I had planned. I put in some particularly large braids to shorten the braiding process, skipped the cold bath and went over my horse with a damp towel, installed his fake tail, and gave him a few minutes to relax while I got my coat, number, and helmet on. It is at this point I notice that Megan is also getting her horse ready, which was problematic since she was the person who I was hoping could set the jumps for me in the warmup area. To any non horse people: when you are warming up for a class, you start working the horse on the flat, then begin with a low jump, and progressively make it larger and wider, usually to the size of the fences in the class. This is generally accomplished by having a person on the ground stake a claim on one of the fences in the warmup area (there are inevitably three) and then adjust the height and width for you. Without having one of those people, I had to just jump what was already there, which thankfully was a small vertical and a 3' oxer. I cantered back and forth over the vertical until I personally got my shit together, jumped the oxer, and headed to the ring all by myself.

Mr. Perfect, Chico, lit right up once he got into the ring, which is normal but not quite to the extent that was exhibited that day. In our warmup class, he actually SPOOKED at something outside of the ring on the way to the first jump, so I got after him, came back to it and tried to ride it in the way I would on a green horse who was stopping at a jump. I was sitting back in the tack, had my legs on, and steady contact on the reins. This time, Chico just plain stopped. I then took a moment to think of what my trainer, Chanda, would tell me to do, and walked up to it, let him sniff both sides, picked up an easy trot and gave him a long approach to the jump with my seat off his back, legs on, and very light contact, and he proceeded to jump the rest of the fences on the first try, which is what he usually does. Point taken, sir. You're allowed to have your occasional naughty moment, and I need to just deal, since you know more about this than I do. (Note: Chico is the only horse who gets this treatment, because he does, in fact, know more about show hunters than I do)

My first trip did not have anything that technically went wrong, since we took off an appropriate distance from all of the jumps, got the right number of strides in between them, and changed leads where it was necessary. That is why I won. It could not have been attractive, given that I wanted to go a full gear slower than he did, and most of the time between the fences was spent trying to slow the crazy old man down. I also subsequently added out of the corner in a couple places where I should not have. I let him nap and realize how exhausting that had been before our second class, and when we went back in, he was still fresh but much more rideable. We nailed most of the course, and on my way to the last line, a tight six, I thought "Grace, don't you dare pull on the reins and add a stride because you are winning this class". Of course, the combination of slowing down too much in preparation for the tight line and my decision to gun it for the long spot meant I had a really spectacular chip to that line. Way to overthink. There were only four in my division, so I still managed a third place finish.

I spent my "free" afternoon after the show doing all of my usual post horse show routines for horse care and then trying to find someone who could help me with my truck and trailer situation. One member of the show staff, Bob, helpfully offered to install a new jack if I would go buy one, which he described to me. Naturally, the one that I purchased would have worked on the vast vast majority of trailers, but mine has a welded plate in the way, so I later had to go back and buy a plain car jack, which we decided I would put on a section of 2 by 4 that he found for me and then use to jack the trailer up off the truck once I got home. He also fixed my hitch for me, which needed to be flipped so that the trailer would ride higher in the front and thus be level. I grabbed dinner for myself and Henry, and headed back to the show for night check and to braid for the next morning. I decided that to compensate for the very large braids of that morning, I would put in a ton of very small ones, which was a great idea until 20 minutes later when I had barely made progress down his neck and realized it was going to take an hour and a half to finish. Oh well. It looked pretty! I settled everyone in for the night and left what I thought was a particularly pretty setup:

The rings started earlier the next morning, and my age group's division was going earlier in the day, so even with the braiding already done, I didn't get to sleep any longer. Thankfully, my trainer Chanda's godmother, Judy Kelly, who is a famous and very knowledgable equestrian from the glory days of the sport, had run into me the day before and was able to set the jumps and coach me a little bit. Chico was not fresh like the prior day, and the combination of a little help to settle me down and having my normal horse back proved to be a very good one. We didn't win the hack class, which was a function of the judge's personal preference, since he has won some large hack classes at very prestigious horse shows, but I was not too concerned with that. We went out to warm up for the jumping classes, and after getting my bad jump out of the way, I settled right into the rhythm that we needed. My warmup and both classes both went very well, with the possible exception of the first jump in the second class which was spooky and thus merited a funny jump. We won both classes, and I received a score of 82 for my second class which was the first round of the WIHS/NAL classic. I was very pleased with that score, given that the first jump had been a little awkward, and it sent me into the second round as the leader. We also were champion of the division!

The second round would run after the older age group had finished, so I took the time to take Chico back to the barn to relax and pee, which he appreciated. Miss Judy had a prior commitment which prevented her from being able to school me again for the classic round, but Megan had finished for the day and very kindly messed up her tight schedule in order to set jumps for me. I warmed up quickly, and had a good round except he looked at that same jump along with an oxer which they had put in the ring specifically for the classic round, a bending eight strides after a two stride which was set on the judge's side of the ring. It was in an odd place, and I overdid it with the encouragement, which got us a little tight to that fence. He doesn't like when I get him close to the jump, and he was already a little wary of that fence, so I am sure the resulting effort was not attractive. We scored an 80 for that round, which is respectable, and I was very happy with him for being such a good sport about having to go back and jump again. Our combined score was leading when the adults finished, but I still had three children's hunters who were combined in the classic, so I left to purchase the aforementioned car jack with my fingers crossed that my position would hold. Much to my delight, it did, and I earned 140 points towards Washington and Harrisburg and 85 dollars.

Because I had to make a trip to fill up the truck and buy the jack and then find Bob and figure out how to get everything functional for the trip home, I was one of the last ones to leave the show grounds, but 5 PM isn't bad at all. The drive down taught me my lesson, and I took I-95 home, which was a total breeze and was 15 minutes shorter, even though the route was 40 miles longer. I encountered this magnificent truck stop which had a McDonalds attached, and I delivered the champion back to the farm safely.

I will follow up this post with one detailing my efforts at being the hunter princess on a budget, whether or not they were successful, and whether or not it's worth it. I will say this- I haven't entitled this series "Budget Fail" for no reason. While I am sure it would have been significantly more expensive if I had not taken the steps that I did, it still was not a cheap weekend by any means!

Budget Fail: Part 2-The Road Was the Easy Part

Let's begin this portion, which will hopefully be shorter than the novel I recently posted, with the map that Google presented to me when I looked for routes between my barn and the show grounds.

In an effort to save gas and therefore money, I thought taking the direct route would make sense, since I would be driving slower and for a shorter distance than if I took the interstate. Now, I am sure all of you who have sensible thought processes are thinking to yourselves, "But Grace, you left for a very long drive at 7 PM. Why would you take the back roads? What if something happened?" The answer to those questions is that I had not remotely considered that Route 15 was as much of a back road as it actually is. I was expecting it to be either 2 or 4 lanes, designed to be wide enough to accommodate trucking traffic, and the normal infrastructure that goes along with that kind of road. There are plenty of highways in the area like that, so it was not a total figment of my imagination, but it was really stupid of me to assume that just because the roads are under the same classification and have the same size line on a map, they are therefore somehow equal. No. In my defense, I will say that another competitor from my area who drives horses to that facility regularly uses that route and likes it, so maybe my issues were mostly related to the dark and not knowing what I was getting into.

Pictured is the portion of my route that travels through an area that is so rural that I was sure I had accidentally been transported to North Dakota or the surface of mars. My father, ironically, called me repeatedly on my trip down to check on my progress and lecture me on driving so late at night. (Hmm, why did I get on the road so late again?) My mother decided that I was, in fact, traveling through a dangerous war zone, and called about every 30-45 minutes. Both were following me on Google maps and would demand my location each time they called, so that they could inform me what I had just passed, (I know, I was there) what is coming up, (Yes, I have seen the sign that says Boomfuckville is this way) and then offer directions to me, as though I would stray from my printed out route while I was in the middle of nowhere in the night. The absence of cell service in the above pictured area of Virginia was particularly distressing to both of them, since it was one of the points of the trip where both were trying to reach me simultaneously, and neither could reach me. This of course meant that as soon as I reached Clarksville and got a signal, I had a barrage of text messages coming in from all sides which grew increasingly distressed. I adore both of them, and know that all of it was the two of them worrying about me and being unable to assist me in any other way, and looking back on it I am laughing, but at the time it was a lot to handle the truck and trailer, unfamiliar back roads at night, trying to find a gas station when there has not been a town for 20 miles and won't be another for 30, spotty to nonexistent cell service, and two parents to reassure. I suppose packing everything up and driving far away to a horse show is no longer a normal occurrence, which is why they both decided that this was the trip to be really worried about me, even though I have been driving horses to shows since I was 17.

Once I got to the Raleigh area, everyone had a big deep breath and a sigh of relief since I was back in populated areas. Wagon Wheel came on my playlist, and I took a second to be a loser and giggle that I was in the song. Everything was smooth sailing until I was close to the horse park, which is very far into the country. My friend, Megan, had called ahead of time to let me know that I needed to follow the directions on the website, not the ones that a navigation system sends you to, since that will be wrong and send you to the offices or something like that. She had also helpfully gone to find my stall assignment, which I appreciated immensely. I had called the show office earlier in hopes of finding that piece of information, and to confirm that my shavings would be waiting for me, and the lady in the office assured me that the stall chart at the entrance would have my stall on it and that the shavings would be there. Megan had also let me know where her stalls were, and warned me that the stabling situation was rather volatile and that everyone was moving around. She suggested that I claim that someone else's things were in my assigned stall and instead put my horse in the empty stalls on her aisle, which were vacated by the barn which was supposed to be there because of a broken board or something. I wasn't about to drag 8 bags of shavings across three barns when I got in, but I promised to consider it once I could scope out the situation.

I finally arrived at the show grounds about 5 minutes after I decided to find somewhere to turn around since I must have passed the place, and found the stabling chart. Of course, my name was not on the chart. It was not on C-22, which was the stall which the office had told Megan, but I decided to go there anyways, since there would be a big pile of shavings bags that would confirm that it was my stall. Although unoccupied, there was a dirtbike parked in C-22 and no shavings bags to be found. I therefore assume that it is not my stall, and proceed to walk around the barns while ranting on the phone to my dear Jacques, looking for the big pile of shavings bags that would mark my temporary home. I promise you, readers, that there were four bags of shavings in the stabling complex at 1 AM, all of which were scattered and obviously belonging to one barn or another. This caused a complete hissy fit worthy of any hunter princess. I was apparently loud and bitchy enough to alert the braiders, who I overheard asking each other who just pulled in and what her problem was. I thankfully had a spare bag in the truck from my morning errands, and the stall next to Megan's had a bag spread in it, presumably before the barn decided to vacate that block. Two bags, while unacceptable in comparison to my usual 8-10, is not COMPLETELY unacceptable in the way that bare ground would have been. I'm stabling with my friend after all, and if the office is upset in the morning, I had all kinds of pent up rage that was fueled by sleep deprivation that really needed a point of delivery. I hastily unpacked most of the trailer and threw everything but my trunk into the next stall down, deciding to use it as a grooming/tack stall and hoping that no one would notice since it was vacant anyways.

This is the point at which I would generally park the trailer, but we have that whole "trailer can not be detached from truck" issue, so I put the ramps back up and punched my hotel into my phone and headed there for a few hours of much needed sleep. I think I finally got to sleep at 3 AM and decided to "sleep in" to 6:30 since the ring started at 8. A quick check of www.horseshowsonline.com to see if the show had even received my entry informed me that the rings would be starting an hour later, which was a very welcome extra hour the alarm could be pushed back.

Budget Fail: Part 1-The Long Road to The Road

Because I am going to ramble when it comes to this horse show, I am going to start out this post with a few bullet points of important facts I learned over the weekend.

• If you want to show your horse on a budget, do not go far away. It does not work.
• There are parts of the state of Virginia that are so rural you can drive through them for 45 minutes without encountering a gas station or having cell service. God bless Eisenhower.
• REINFORCEMENT: People have trainers, haulers, braiders, and grooms for a reason. Those people sleep. I am unclear as to whether or not the aforementioned professionals do.
• No one is there to help you once you go through the gate. It is a very good thing to do some work on your own so you can school yourself once you get there.

So, let's begin with a little story about your resident hunter princess, myself. My mother calls me "her snake bit daughter". If you can imagine an obscure way for fate to just cause someone to have a really hard time with something, it's going to happen to me. This is important to keep in mind not just for this series, but throughout the blog. I have had friends ask me how it is that I always have a story to tell, and the bad luck combined with my tendency to be an airhead explain why. It just is the perfect storm of "hold on, you said WHAT happened?"

A congressman wanted to honor my late grandfather by flying a flag over the capitol building for a day in his honor and then presenting the flag to his family. The date for this event changed three times, starting in September. Naturally, last week my father announced that the ceremony would be Friday, the one day of the entire year that it would be most problematic for me. Any attempts to explain this to him delicately were not met well, so I resigned myself to a very, very long day. 6 AM wakeup call, dress up in business attire, makeup, hair, heels, the works. Drive to Orange, Virginia to pick up the feed I realized I was out of when I had packed the trailer and a couple other last minute items. Then head over to the vet to pick up a few medications that I keep with me at the show just in case. Having finished my errands (thankfully horse people are up early and getting all of this done before 8:15 was not a problem), I drove to Culpeper, Virginia, where my sister and I had planned to meet so that we could drive into DC together and use the HOV lane. Henry of course could not be stuck sitting in the truck waiting on us all day, so I checked him into Mountain Run Kennel for the day so that he could run around, and hoped and prayed that he would get plenty of exercise. The staff was as sweet and accommodating as could be, and the facility was a dog paradise, set in the middle of acres of farmland, so I felt good leaving him there. Poor Oliver was not so lucky, since he is not allowed to go in high traffic areas, much less a boarding facility, grooming place, dog park, or anything like that, because he is on a bunch of medications to suppress his immune system to treat his neurological condition. He spent the weekend at VETSS, the emergency veterinary clinic in Charlottesville that has treated him, and received his second round of chemotherapy from Dr. Miller with Virginia Vet Specialists who without question saved his life. I'll do a post on Ollie and his condition later.

Annie and I had been in communication the whole morning, starting when I called her to get her out of bed half an hour after she was supposed to be up, and she was still in recovery from the prior night's sorority date function. To those not familiar with the practices of the greek community, a date function is what fraternities and sororities will have as a social event, usually themed. The idea is that every member of the organization will bring a date (presumably of the opposite gender), hence the title, but I have never seen this actually executed with the sororities. Generally a bunch of sisters will bring good friends who are not in the sorority as their dates, or people will bring multiple "dates" with them, and it basically turns into a big fun theme party that you need to be invited by a sister to. Themes vary, but there will invariably a vast quantity of alcohol, beginning around 8 PM at several pregames, both organized by sisters and of the unorganized, "let's start drinking early and get dressed together" sort. The event ends at 2 AM, and while most people go home at that point, it seems that annie elected to attend a fraternity function that continued past that time. Needless to say, her 7:30 wake up call was received with bitterness and hostility that can only be compared to a terrorist group ranting about the evils of the United States. She also probably should not have been driving, and while I maintain that she would have been under the legal limit, she was not of the same opinion. The combination of sleep deprivation and residual alcohol was nevertheless not a good idea, but the drive to Culpeper from Charlottesville is a straight line on a 4 lane road, so I felt it was manageable provided she drank plenty of coffee and had a greasy breakfast. I had apparently underestimated the prior night's activities, since I had to stay on the phone with her for most of the drive, and she managed to hit a temporary construction sign that was in the median and damage her driver's side mirror.

Despite all the morning activities, we were actually exactly on time according to my schedule, which still had extra built in time for traffic and getting a little bit lost. The trip into DC was not too difficult, and after detailing all the events of the night before and purchasing a whole lot of gatorade, Annie took a long and much needed nap. An uncharacteristic lucky turn of events had me staring across an intersection at my father while I was on the phone with him trying to figure out the logistics of getting past the barricades and into the appropriate capitol parking garage. The ceremony was really lovely, and I had a good time seeing some extended family and hearing stories about my grandfather's influence in the community. I probably should not commit this to writing, but the most interesting part was when we briefly spoke about some political issues with the congressman, which is not remotely in the theme of this blog so I won't go there. Suffice it to say that I left DC wondering if there was any reliable source of information about political events available to me at all, short of living in the district and knowing everyone.

Of course, my plan that the ceremony would start promptly at noon, and that we could then be leaving the district by 1 or 1:30 was completely imaginary. Everything started at 12:30, took quite a while, and lunch was at an actual restaurant. We finally got going at 2:30 and, thanks to what I am sure was comparatively mild DC traffic, the 70 mile drive back to Culpeper took two hours. I grabbed Henry at 5, just before they closed, and began wondering how on earth I was going to drive nearly 6 hours to a show when it was getting dark before I even got to the barn.

I arrived to the barn with the vague memory that last time I was at my trailer, the ground had collapsed underneath my block, but assumed that just meant I might have trouble getting the coupler high enough to get onto the ball, which has happened before and I have been able to handle it. In order to explain the issue, let's first look at a picture of a trailer jack:

The jack basically consists of two metal tubes, one smaller and one larger, and a crank handle that moves the smaller one out of the larger tube, thereby raising whatever heavy object is attached to the bracket. Well, when the ground collapsed, the smaller tube, which was resting on a wooden block, bent at about a 30 degree angle to the larger tube, thus rendering the jack useless, since it would not lower the trailer onto my truck. A combination of banging, cursing, battering the coupler of the trailer with the ball on my truck, and lots of sweat on my part meant that 45 minutes after I initially backed up to my trailer, it was finally attached to my truck. I had also rendered the jack even more useless in the process, and resigned myself to having the trailer attached to my truck until such time that a professional could remove it. Everything was thankfully packed, so the rest of the loading process went smoothly and I pulled out of the farm, with horse, great dane, and all the necessary accoutrements, at 7....

The Hunter Princess on a Budget

It has been a good long while since I have shown regularly, and to say that a lot has changed would be a vast understatement. My new horse, Chico, was a gift to me, since he is an older fellow with a prior injury who requires special attention. My showing is also going to be financed in a larger portion by my own self, so the house rules are about to change in here. Long gone are the days of the grooming stall, and the tack stall, and the other grooming stall, and the two stalls that were set up as a lounge and display of the barn's accomplishments. My new M.O. involves showing off the trailer whenever possible, dreaming of switching demos into a suburban so I can camp in the back, and spending early mornings on a braiding ladder.

I miss having more help, surely, but I am getting my setup perfected to the point where showing off the trailer is easier than having a stall and a grooming stall. I'll have to get some pictures for everyone. My two horse bumper pull has a side ramp also, which makes it really nice and airy in the summer, and plans are in the works currently for a quiet camping generator to further pimp my ride. It's a no-brainer to show at culpeper and deep run this way, since both are less than an hour from the barn. The shows at Rose Mount and Lexington are also within reasonable driving distance, although I will get a stall if my division is going more than one day, because being a tight wad hunter princess is, frankly, exhausting.

Some of my readers may wonder whether I should be allowed to maintain my title, given these changes in procedure and finances. I will have them know that my lovely horse will still always be wearing seasonally appropriate, custom made, monogrammed blankets from The Clothes Horse, and I will not be seen in the ring looking anything less than perfect. Well...if I can help it. I am a blonde, after all.

Walter's Horse

We interrupt these long boring ramblings to add some entertainment. Walter found a horse while we were in Holland. I left his sight and came back to find him giggling and recording this.

DTW- it's mostly a good airport

Initially, I was concerned about using Detroit as a connection. For one, the city might as well be Nagasaki, but with bad chi instead of nuclear radiation. They do the same amount of damage to the surrounding area though. Second, this was the famed "Flight of the Underwear Bomber". In case you live under a rock, here's the photo evidence:

The man apparently stashed some kind of explosives in his, erm, testicular region (I am keeping my promise on the penis-free blog!) and then failed to detonate them properly, instead setting himself on fire in that area. He was apprehended and taken care of, but the aftermath meant I was traveling with a very very nervous father. Security in the Amsterdam airport isn't like what you normally deal with here. Each individual gate has its own agents, xray machine, and sniffer room thing. I thought it would just be an improved version of a normal procedure. Until I recieved, hands down, the most invasive frisking ever. Seriously, it was more action than I have gotten in a good long while. I know I'm, erm, well endowed, but I am not hiding bombs in there. Also, I was wearing leggings-type pants. Grabbing my butt cheeks/lady bits is unnecessary, a visual inspection, I believe is more than adequate. However, I am not in control of security procedures, and I was in Amsterdam, so I let the creepy Asian with the soul patch do his thing without protest. I didn't like it but I bet no one else sneaks anything on in their underwear, so, that's how it goes.

Now, back to Detroit. According to their airport website, the buildings that I am in are the McNamara terminal, which are all new as of 2002. It's really a pretty, bright airport. Concourse A is the second longest airport in the world, with a one mile long hallway. There is a train that moves up and down it, but instead of being underground, they installed it way overhead, so you can see it buzzing up and down. It's definitely neat to watch. The most interesting part about the airport, however, is the acid trip that is the tunnel. Here's the wikipedia entry reference to it:

The "B" and "C" concourses are connected to the main terminal building and the "A" Concourse by a pedestrian walkway under the tarmac. This walkway, known as the Light Tunnel, features an elaborate multi-colored light show behind sculpted glass panels extending the entire length of the walkway, as well several moving walkways. The light patterns are synchronized with an original musical score. This installation, one of the first, large scale uses of color changing LED lighting in the States, was produced by Mills James Productions and has won multiple lighting design awards including the prestigious Guth Award of Merit.

Well, and here is my version:

The flights themselves were actually really pleasant. Going over, I slept most of the way, and coming back I enjoyed the personal entertainment screen and a copy of Shutter Island. Some random comments from that aspect:

• If you have read the book Shutter Island, please take a moment to inform me WTF is going on in the last 50 pages. Thanks. I liked it a lot until that point and then I was lost.
• If you choose to watch the movie, "The Men Who Stare at Goats", it probably makes a lot more sense if you don't take a nap in the middle. I woke up to an army base that had LSD released into the water supply and everyone was going insane. It was a really confusing time for me.
• Top Gun. One of the best movies ever. That's really all I have to say about that.
• I also got in a bit of Inglorious Basterds (sic), and wasn't all that impressed. I have really bad taste in movies for the most part I think though. I rarely like a movie that wins any kind of award.

Traveling With a Saddle

So, for my shortest topic, it can be done! You can, in fact, carry a saddle on board of a plane. I have even managed to fit it into the overhead of a "regional jet"- puddle jumper. Here are some things to expect:

• People will look at you as though you are some kind of freak carrying something dangerous. I don't know why, nor can I understand why no one asked me about it, but it's apparently very, VERY suspicious.
• Security, surprisingly, will not care like you think they will. I even have cheese grater pads on my stirrups, which I think could be some kind of weapon. No problemo, send 'er on through.
• On the note of stirrups: I have the black Italian carbon ones. If you have metal ones, CHECK THEM. You do not want to carry them around, and I have heard that they can be taken, since you could swing it at someone and smush their head like a hardboiled egg. The latter part being my interpretation, not the TSA.
• Even if you want to risk the security with the stirrups, you absolutely don't want to carry them around. That saddle gets heavy real quick when you are on an endlessly long moving walkway.
• It's not as good of an idea to perch the saddle on the handle of a rolling bag as you would think. The double bar configuration means it will start slipping on the aforementioned moving walkways, then you will have to stop and right it. This will inevitably happen just as the one pissed off New Yorker who is late for his connection is trying to perform the airport walkway version of a Talladega bump draft. Carry it if you can. Much less irritating. However, I suspect that if I had given that plan more thought and secured it around the handle, in a burrito fashion, with some kind of strap, it would have worked out better.
• You probably aren't as crazy as I am, so disregard that above if necessary. That's really only going to come into play if you're trying to bring three carry ons. Which, also, no one seems to care about. Go figure.

This concludes my helpful tutorial on how to carry on a saddle. More travel-related rantings to follow.