A Day to be Forgotten

Off to our first NADAC show so we can work on Shane's contacts. Left Friday afternoon and the temperature dropped as we drove north. Left the house on a warm day and arrived in Waco on a cold day. Temperature had dropped 20 degrees in the 2 hour drive.

Checked into the hotel first. Very disappointed. If I had seen the outside of this building, I would have never booked. It's about 20 feet from I-35 and the noise is deafening. Checking in they couldn't find my reservation. I had reserved a room for the previous weekend. What? She had one room left and credited me for the previous weekend. Not bad. The room itself was nice enough, but the location is horrible.

Off to the show. I had a terrible time trying to find this place. My husband is home with his GPS and I'm juggling Google map printouts. Out in the middle of nowhere. Metal barn on the left? There are metal barns everywhere! No signs. Finally see a car with a dog and followed it into the parking lot of one of the metal barns. Thank god I had thrown my parka into the trunk. I was told the barn was heated so I didn't bring a lot of warm clothes. The barn is freezing inside! Set up my stuff and see there is no food, so back into the car to find dinner. All food places are in gas stations. Subway in a gas station. Uh. No? Spy a Sonic down the road. Whew.

First run was Hoopers. Dogs running through hula hoops. OK. I planned to use the run as a training session for our start line, but now NADAC penalizes that. Whatever. We do the run and qualify. Great. A Q in Hoopers. Last run was Touch and Go. Blew the dog walk and Shane is just nuts. I'm outa there.
Had trouble getting back to the hotel. Hard to read Google maps in the dark. It's freezing and the wind is blowing. Found an HEB and got a bottle of wine. Back to the hotel to relax. Shane has to go out around 11 to pee and we get one block when the sky lights up. Here comes that storm. The thunder is so loud that the building shakes. Luckily Shane tolerates that well.

Saturday was miserable. I've never been so cold in all my life. I put my pajamas on under my clothes and that helped a little. It rained off and on all day. All our runs were terrible. Shane was hard to control with the open spaces of NADAC runs. The times we clicked were fabulous, but the rest was a mess. 2nd and Q in Weavers. Duh. That's our specialty. I was so happy to be on the road home. Frank had snacks waiting and a roaring fire to warm me up. I don't think I'll be going back to Waco for any trials anytime soon.
Sunday, the sun was shining. No coats needed. It's like Saturday never happened. Just two purple Q ribbons to remind me of our forgotten day in Waco. The only thing I'll remember is the great conversations I had with other handlers. Good people.