Miko and Me: A Day At The Races

The Grand Design National Rally is over. People are pulling out left and right. I have decided that I need to stay one more day at the Fairgrounds for the simple fact that it is Labor Day Weekend. Given my normal lack-of-planning, I had not given that much thought. Of course this means I have no place to stay because all the people who plan ahead have reserved campsites leaving nothing for us seat of the pants type people.

That said, it was an exciting day. This morning there was a horse show. They were judging baby horses of the Dutch Harness breed. I had never heard of this breed and it was fascinating. They are tall, elegant and fancy horses. Besides that, who doesn't love looking at babies.

Look at the lift of that little guy's front legs. Pretty fancy.

I don't think this was his most photogenic side. I'm thinking he might be part giraffe.

Later, at the fairground race track there was harness racing. I've never seen this in person and I loved it. I need to know more about this sport. The only problem is that each race is over so quickly. They were only going once around the track.

The horses all start off following a truck with big metal wings. They start off about a quarter of the track before the starting line. The truck and horses go faster and faster until they cross the starting line and the truck takes off allowing the horses to race. During this time, if something goes wrong such as a driver interferes with another or a horse trips, the drivers start yelling recall and they all have to start over again. The offending driver is penalized by having to start at the back of the pack. There was a rookie driver who fouled another driver and had to move from third starting position to the last starting position. When the race started, he moved his horse to the outside and as they turned down the home stretch he made his move, passed all the other horses and won. It was thrilling. Yup, going to have to get into this a bit more.

I also went to the RV/MH Hall of Fame where they had many campers on display. These campers demonstrated how the camper evolved from tents you pulled behind your car to the modern day RV.

I must admit, the campers from the thirties were my favorites. Most of these were hand made in somebody's garage and the workmanship was stellar. It was like doing house tours of old houses but these all had wheels on them. Some of these campers even came complete with the musty smell of your grandma's old house.