WEG, here we come!!
The trip I’ve been planning for over a year is finally here! I can’t believe it. For the longest time it’s seemed so far away, but it’s now right around the corner.
Yeah, so last year, a friend of mine casually mentioned wanting to go to the World Equestrian Games because they were in Kentucky this time around. It’s the first time in the history of the Games they’ve been held outside of Europe. Well, I jumped on the thought, and have slowly made all of the plans for our trip. Last fall, when the tickets first went on sale, I got our’s for the weekend parts of the Eventing Championships. Saturday’s cross country and the jumping round on Sunday.
The hotel was really the biggest piece of the puzzle. Even as I’ve spoken to fellow horse people, the first thing they ask when I mention going is if I had a room. I made our reservation exactly one year ago, the first day I could. It was tricky. We are actually staying in Louisville, which is an hour away from Lexington, where the Games are being held. It came down to a relatively short drive to save hundreds of dollars in hotel expenses. It was crazy, even a year in advance, the room rate for the decent hotels in Lexington were between $300-400 per night!! No way. Instead, I got a normal rate over in Louisville.
I’ve been monitoring flight prices for months, and finally just pulled the trigger in August. The cost didn’t really change much and at that point, I just wanted to be finished with it. The car rental was the same.
This month, I’ve finalized our plans, with a couple last minute added activities. After having picked out our plane tickets, I went ahead and bought tickets to Friday afternoon’s three-day dressage session. My friend then mentioned she had look into getting us tickets to the Grand Prix Freestyle dressage event, but decided not to because of the cost, so I went behind her back and did it anyway. The final addition was a tour of the well-known Thoroughbred breeding farm, Three Chimneys. It just seemed like if we were going to Lexington, we HAD to visit at least one nice horse farm. Right?
So, that’s the plan:
Friday:
1:00pm – WEG Three-Day Event Dressage
7:00pm – WEG Dressage Grand Prix Freestyle
Saturday:
9:00am – WEG Three-Day Event Cross Country
Sunday:
10:00am – Three Chimneys Stallion Division Tour
1:00pm – WEG Three-Day Event Jumping
I’m so excited for this trip. This is going to be Fair Hill on steroids! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my trips to watch the high level cross country at Fair Hill the past few years, and this is going to be an even higher level of competition. Oh, and I’m going to get to see the whole event – dressage, cross country and jumping.
2008 Lunar Eclipse
Prince George’s County, MD
Well, the eclipse was tonight and since I had nothing better to do to procrastinate, I grabbed my camera and set up shop outside. Okay, that’s not true. I ran out every 15-30 minutes, but still, you get the picture. My roommate gave me the idea, as he was the first to make the move out front. So, we ended up setting up two tripods on the sidewalk outside and both popped out every so often to snap a few pictures.
Lunar Eclipse
I’ve never taken pictures in the dark, let alone of the moon, but I quickly skimmed over some tips on the Internet and asked my roommate for help. Seems the combination worked for the most part.
9:30 pm
About 9:30pm
10:30 pm
About half an hour in
10:15pm
15 minutes later…
10:30pm
Almost complete
11:00pm
Coming back, two hours later
11:30pm
Final shots at 11:30pm
One of my neighbors actually came up to talk, which was neat. She, a fellow grad student, was just getting home from class and walked over to see what I was doing. I’ve lived here a while, and I’ve never really met any of my neighbors. The guy next door, as well as another guy down the road (the home owner’s association president), usually nod or say hi, but that’s about it.
Today’s Flickr set: moon photos
Visiting my lil’ sis
The semester just started and we have our first three-day holiday weekend. Gotta love the fall semester. Anyway, I’m spending my Labor Day weekend with my sister in Connecticut. She moved there almost a year ago for a job and I have yet to visit, and here’s my chance. Usually she travels home for the holidays and we’re both fairly busy, so we haven’t been able to work out a good time for me to visit, until now.
She invited me up and I accepted. She wants me to see where’s she’s been living and to just have some sister time, which I understand. She’s taken a new position within her organization that will take her overseas, so relatively soon we’re not going to have the opportunity to hang out for a while. I can’t wait, although, I wouldn’t mind skipping the holiday traffic.
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