Another day, another dollar, as they say. What beautiful weather we had today. Very hot with some wind, thank goodness, or it would have been unbearable for some. I totally love the hot weather.

Our system was changed up a bit today with the early race time. We again enjoyed a quiet morning, just Rick and I, discussing our day-to-day journey so far. Some days people get so caught up in their jobs, duties and other things that they miss the moments that count. We love what we do but when people come into our lives, with different issues that affect their life and share them with us, we come down to their level and realize that the sport we are involved in just doesn’t mean so much in the big picture of things.

Rick and I are so thankful to have met a beautiful soul, Stephanie, her friend Chantelle and her kids this weekend. As I shared in yesterday’s blog, Stephanie’s fiancé has cancer. And they have been dealing with this for a while now. We are thankful to have been able to open our “Home Away from Home” lifestyle with the both of them. It was a time for Stephanie to let go, and just be, around the horses. It was therapeutic. I totally believe that people come into our lives for a reason, and they also leave for a reason as well.

Having 21 head of horses on the road comes with a whole lot of love and care. One of our newest horses, Vegas, was showing a bit of soreness on his left front ankle. So we ordered up the vet from the University of Saskatoon to come out and check things out. Nothing serious was found, just a bit of a bruise. We take all injuries very seriously and tend to them immediately. They are just like our babies.

With all ages of folks enjoying the races, an elderly lady was today’s lucky recipient of our mini chuckwagon. She was very excited, to say the least. We are so glad to put a smile on someone’s face.

With the races taking place at 2:15pm, there was little time to sit after morning chores and before the beginning of races. In no time, I was on my way to the track with Cayley and our two outriding horses. This is my job, to get them to the outriders on time. Rick was on barrel 4 today with the same hook as yesterday: Speedy – Left Leader, Nickle – Right Leader, Sneakers – Left Wheeler, Law – Right Wheeler, with Bingo ridden by Chanse V. and Trixter with a new outrider, Cole Sommerville. They both did a great job. The horses started okay, but didn’t get after it after coming around the top barrel.  They usually have a bit more charge. At any rate, at the end of the race Rick managed to come up between Kelly and Rae to post a time of 1:17.40. Good enough for seventh on the day, and sixth in the show. Mark Sutherland won the title, and it was his first win of his career. We are sitting fourth in the world standings.

We are headed to bed early as we are hoping to get a very speedy start to go south to Medicine Hat in the morning.

Travelin’ Trailer update: For those of you who still follow me mostly through my email messages, please sign up to follow this blog. I will be discontinuing my email updates in the near future, so you all need to do this to continue to get my updates. It is very simple. When you’re on this http://www.travelintrailer.com site, click the “follow this blog” button and follow the instructions from there.

In life, what sometimes appears to be the end is really a new beginning.