Are you ready?

Wednesday dawned clear and cold. The hotel ladies and I made our way to Rachel King's, packed our trailers and ponies, and headed to the Kentucky Horse Park.

As we made our way into the park, I noticed something that would continue to be a trend during our WEG visit: signs. There was a sign about every ten feet reminding us that pets were not permitted in the park. So, after I kicked out the ten stray dogs I had picked up in between signs 56 and 57, we were in the park. We had to go through several checkpoints before making it to the barns, however.

The first official I met asked a unique question: "Who is in the first truck in your caravan?" Umm...my first thought was that they were in some sort of trouble, but I told him it was Stef and Andy anyways. Relief broke over his face. "That saves me from asking you about a hundred questions," he said, and sent us onward.

The USDA/KY Health Inspectors brought me into a little trailer and were quite jolly as they looked over the copious amounts of paperwork I had for the four horses in my trailer. As we were finishing up, Brenda jogged up from her place in the line, searching for her paperwork amongst my own papers. Luckily, everything was there for both Brenda's and Ingrid's horses, and everyone passed the health check.

Next came the bomb-sniffing dogs. While we were pretty convinced they were just hoping we left some extra sausages in our tack compartment, we nonetheless watched with great interest as the canine and police officer made their way around our rig. I'm still not sure if the officer's command "Keep your hands to yourselves!" was a warning or a joke...

Finally, we were onto the Equine Village. After unloading all the equipment, costumes, supplies, and hay we brought (and almost knocking out someone from the Pat Parelli group with an errant bale of hay I threw down from the top of the trailer), we tucked our trailers away in the lot (ours was across from Kim Severson's!!!), we were settled in and tried to get ready for our first performance. Hair was to be braided, tack cleaned, costumes sorted, and before we knew it, the time had come for the Sound of Music, Haflinger style.