A Horse Day Bust...

A couple of weeks ago I had requested yesterday off so I could go to the annual Arabian show that was in town.  I don't go every year and have not been going more often than not, but I had decided to go this year.  Picking a day to go was a bit more difficult due to coverage needs in my unit and the class schedule, but decided on Wednesday, even though there really wasn't anything in the class list that interested me.  Anyway, I requested the day off and got it.  And then I hurt my knee.  I don't know how it happened, but it did.  Some days it's difficult to walk and other days it's fine.  When I stand up from my desk at work, I have to just stand there for a few moments while my knee decides if it's going to behave or hurt, but after I walk around a bit, it's fine.

Yesterday morning I got up and did a loop in the Lower Salt River Rec Area looking for my horses and then I stopped to get gas in my car.  That's when I knew I wasn't going to the Arab show.  As soon as I got out of my car and put a little weight on it, it started to hurt.  Well, crap!    Now what?  Errands.  My big horse day turned into errand day.  I went to the post office to mail some packages then did another loop of the Lower Salt and saw some domestic horses heading out for a trail ride, but still no wild horses.  The next stop on my agenda was WalMart for an oil change on my car, which was way overdue.  Of course, everyone and their uncle decided it would be a perfect time to get their oil changed at that very same Walmart so I had to wait more than an hour.  When I finally got finished there, I had to decide where to go next.  I know!  I could go to the show grounds and take pictures of the bazillions of horse trailers and maybe catch a glimpse or two of an Arabian.  It doesn't cost anything to drive within certain areas of the park.  But when I got to WestWorld, I was greeted with this...

What's going on?  Usually this area is PACKED with horse trailers.  It looked very odd to see so much open space.  And then I saw this...

Please tell me this isn't a horse trailer.  Please?  I think it had a couple of windows in the back, but that's it.  Maybe it is used for hauling equipment.  I really hope it's not.  I think it says it's made by Sunlite so I went to their website just to verify it's NOT a horse trailer, but I wasn't going to go through all of the makes and models just to find it.  The Toy Hauler section alone had 1,484 listings!

So, after leaving this area, I went in search of the other parking lot that's usually filled with trailers as well and saw...yet again...

Even fewer trailers in this parking lot.  What's going on?  Is the fear of the HPV virus keeping people away from the show this year?  It's allegedly been contained to Turf Paradise and they say there's no reason to be concerned for show horses coming to Scottsdale or other parts of the valley, but are people choosing to be cautious?   It was a real shame to see so few trailers around.  Now, there were some others within the fenced in stabling areas, but because of the temporary and permanent stalls, there's not much room for big (or small) trailers.

I did get to see some horses, though.  Mostly ones sticking their heads out of the stalls, but I did see someone walking around a rather spirited flea-bitten grey.  I didn't get pictures of that one because I didn't want to call unwanted attention to myself by parking in the middle of the road with a huge camera.  And unfortunately, the stables shot I got didn't include any horses sticking their heads out.  Oh well.  You'll just have to trust me that there was a line of bays, all with their heads sticking out...

After leaving "Horseworld" (what it was called when I went to my first Scottsdale Arabian show), I headed up a bit north to Bartlett Lake.    It's a bit of a ways out there and took me almost 45 minutes to get there from the show grounds, although it only took 30 minutes to get back to my neighborhood.  Of course, much of that was on the freeway, so that probably has something to do with it.  Anyway, I don't know if I've ever been to this lake and if I have, it was a long time ago and I don't remember any of it, but it wasn't all that spectacular or inspiring...

I couldn't really find a way to get much closer to it without worrying about being in the wrong place, plus there was something else I wanted to do back "in town" so I got some pictures and headed back.  I wonder how long the water level has been that low...maybe it's only like that during the winter, like the Salt River.  During the summer the river runs quite nicely, but right now they don't put much water through it so there's hardly anything to it in some spots.

My next destination didn't pan out too well and I still had some time to kill before heading home so I went to the resort I used to work at back in the 90s.  Back then, it was the Pointe Hilton at South Mountain.  Then Hilton pulled out so it was just the Pointe at South Mountain.  Now it's the Arizona Grande.  I didn't recognize ANY of it.  Not one bit.  No, I take that back.  I recognized the fountain when you first drive in and I recognized a side area where they've had events in the past.  When I worked there they, and the other two Pointe Hilton properties (Tapatio Cliffs and Squaw Peak) all had horses available for rent.  I don't know if the other two still have theirs, but South Mountain stopped doing rides years ago.  Possibly when Hilton pulled out.   The building where you signed up and one of the corrals is still there...

 I was a mini bar attendant when I worked there so I was responsible for refilling the mini bars and charging the missing items to the guests.  Back then it was done by phone.  Now it's done by weights within the fridge so even if you move something to put your own stuff in there, it charges you for that item.  It wasn't too bad of a job.  I worked mostly alone.  The only thing I didn't like was you had to do the "check out" rooms first so you had to go knocking on people's doors at 8.30am even though check out wasn't until 11.  I hated that.  And any money left behind, it was automatically for the housekeepers, but every now and then we were allowed to take it, but ONLY if there was a note specifying it was for the mini bar people.  That didn't happen too much, though.  What we were allowed to take, after a guest had checked out, was anything left in the refrigerator.  Not our stuff we put in there, although we were allowed to help ourselves to the snacks and such, but if a guest brought their own food and put it in the refer but didn't take it with them we were allowed to take that and not the housekeepers.   The only exception was any liquor left behind had to be put in the "cage" in our office, but once a year they'd have a party with the booze.  I wasn't there long enough to enjoy that because an ambulance company called and wanted to hire me.   I was allowed to wear shorts in the summer, too, which is good in Arizona.    Another good thing about this place was how generous they were.  When I worked at a Marriott resort, we weren't allowed on the property if we weren't on the clock.  I'll have to do a post later on about my adventures at that place.  But like I said, we weren't allowed there if we weren't on the clock.  Some of the people in my department went one afternoon to play basketball and got caught.  They weren't fired or anything, but they did get a lecture.  Anyway, the Pointe Hilton WANTED us there.  They WANTED us to use the swimming pools and spas and rental stables and they gave us decent discounts to entice us to do so.  Why?  Because they said that guests will ask us for recommendations on what to do on the property and how could we do that if we didn't know firsthand what the activities were like?  How, indeed.  I never got a chance to try the facilities, though, which was a bummer.

Anyway, that's how my busted Horse Day went.  Until next time...