Another day of wonderful, hot weather. I think it reached 30 degrees for sure.

We didn’t hook any horses this morning so we just did the chores. We were short a crew member, as all the girls went out last night to celebrate our hired girl Kim’s 24th birthday. They all had a great time. Kim got to sleep in.

I had an appointment at 10, so I made sure all the crew were fed and watered. Rick really doesn’t like it when I say that. He always says to me, “We’re not horses, you know.” But at the end of the day they are happy that I’m cooking for them.

I arrived back at the trailer by noon. My next project was to sort through all the Team 23 T-shirts that arrived. With the help of Amy, Kendra and Allie, we refolded, sorted and organized them all so my trailer would be livable again. It’s pretty bad when your neighbour boy pops by and says, “You sure have a lot of junk in here.” He sure made me laugh.

We were off the 1 barrel tonight. It’s our favourite. Rick hooked Spirit on Left Lead, Ranger on Right Lead, Vegas on Left Wheel and Zorba the big grey on the Right Wheel. We continue to have Cole holding the leaders and tonight he rode Beau. Dustin threw the stove and rode Trixter, his favourite.

The outfit started hard and came to the track to get the rail. They all ran hard and finished first at the finish line, placing us 9th on the day. The driver did a great job too!

I must say, Ricky’s a pretty good skinner, as he had some real good teachers and comes from a pretty good gene pool: his grandfather Tommy Dorchester, his stepdad Dave Lewis and his uncle Dallas Dorchester.

I don’t have any race photos tonight, as I didn’t realize until I got to the infield that I forgot to put the battery back into the camera. Grrrrr. Silly me. It won’t be the first time and may not be the last. Ho hum.

But the photos I do have are some great ones of our good friends Doug and Deb Hanson’s grandkids. They are our number one fans. They were at the races tonight sporting their new Team 23 T-shirts.

And afterward, they posed for a photo with a gentleman named Jim Plamondon. Jim was thrilled to have received our little mini chuckwagon giveaway tonight after Rick’s race. It put a smile on his face.

We met another young fella tonight. Damien came to visit us from Red Deer. He met our friend Mary Lynn from Bruce’s Tru Hardware store. She sent him over to meet us and get a signed poster. We did better than that and gave him a T-shirt too. I think we made a fan for life. He said he’s coming back next year for sure.

In my opinion one of the best things about our chuckwagon journey is meeting all the wonderful people along the way. There are so many of you out there, with so many different stories to tell and different paths of life. And we appreciate meeting you all and letting you come into our lives to see just a bit of what we do.

A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in or the kind of car I drove…but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.