If you read Sam's "rain" post, you probably know that I just got back late sunday night from a model horse show in Chincoteague, VA (same hotel and showhall as this year's RU). It was supposed to take me only 8 1/2 hours to get there, but with traffic, lunch/gas stop, and picking up a friend along the way it took me about 12-13 hours one way. Since my friend lives on the southern tip of Connecticut, our only choice without going way out of the way was to drive through NYC (the BRONX!) and over the George Washinton Bridge. I usually try to avoid it at all costs, but since she lives right over the border and seems to think nothing of going this way, I didn't want to seem like a wimp.

So yeah, I survived. And I drove all the way there and all the way back by myself (well, with a passenger, but I did all the driving). Drove from NH through MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, and into VA. I decided before this trip that it was worth getting an EZ Pass. For those of you that don't know what this is, it's basically an electronic thingy that you stick to your windshield that is picked up by all the tolls you go through. There are special EZ Pass lanes through all tolls in all the states I mentioned (except for NH), and I saved at least 2 hours each way because of it. Some of the tolls had lanes where you didn't even have to slow down... just flew under the detector at 65 MPH. That was great! No waiting in lines to hand cash over to the toll booth attendants.

I discovered that NJ does not allow one to pump their own gas. We had to wait in line twice for a total of an hour to get gas there. It was quite strange. At least it was cheaper than most of the states (they don't have a gas tax). Ironically, Chincoteague had the best gas rates of the whole trip... only $2.05 a gallon!

All in all it was worth the trip. I ended up coming back with 4 grand and 2 reserve grand ribbons, as well as overall grand in performance, overall reserve grand in performance, and overall grand in artist resin (can't really take credit for that one... it was an amazing sculpture with an amazing paint job, both by someone else... I just had to plunk it on the table and make sure there was no dust on it ;). Overall champs get trophies that are in the form of model horses, and there are only 8 of the glossy (champ) and 8 of the matte (reserve champ) trophies. The judges were quite impressed with our setups. One kept complaining that my friend and I were making her job very difficult in judging performance (we are from region 10 where performance competition is very tough, virginia is part of region 9). Two of them came over at the end of the day and thanked us for bringing out our stuff, and asked who the heck we were. hehe! The showholder took pictures of me and my performance wins, so will hopefully have a picture to post eventually.

Now to recover and start preparing for Breyerfest in less than 5 weeks. This is THE model horse show that draws fellow hobbiests from around the country and the world. Breyer is the top producer of our plastic model horses, and the competition doesn't get much harder than there. It is the only show I have yet to bring home a Grand Champion ribbon in performance from. Maybe this year will be the year. I've also started painting models (dusting with pastels), so perhaps I'll prove to be a contender in that respect some day.

-A very tired Leen