Thursday, September 8

Where has the time gone???.....we are actually planning our last week of training.....cones/ dressage, cones/ dressage, etc., etc....today we drove the ponies to a ring with the same footing that they will have at the Championships....2 pairs and 3 singles trotted through town...about 5k to practice cones.....the footing was good and the cones course very hard but we were OK....more cones practice needed....last Sunday we went to Peter Tischer's barn for cones practice and that was not good......very slippery, deep sand so we slid all over....basically a cones day from hell and Michael said to go home and forget about it....and we did ....sort of.....

Saturday I drove very early in the AM so we could head out for the day in search of castles....and castles we found...we drove up the Rhine on the west bank from Mainz to above Koblenz. The first huge castle we spotted we had to stop and climb up to it...our destination was Burg Eltz and it was fabulous...we had lunch at the castle and then drove the Mossel River bank back to the Rhine and then down the East bank to Rudesheim where we rode a gondola over the vineyards and then had dinner before we headed home to Gotezenheim...a great day had by all...

Andy & Addison

Burg Eltz

the Tahoe getting stuck in street way tooooo small!!

vineyards from the air

the Crosses in their gondola

our ever faithful photographer

putting Cisco & Avalon to...

Avalon with poltice necklace after a dressage day

heading to the forest for a light day of work with Ben and Cisco

Sunday, Sept. 4th.....Bettina and I had dinner with my cousin Olly and her husband, Peter Hunger and Olly's brother Christoph...a great reunion...the last time I saw Olly was 50 years ago when she spent the summer at our farm in Pennsylvania.....so lot's of ground to cover...she gave me a newly published book of my great grandmother's diary.....how excellent!!

tomorrow - Friday - is dressage day for me with two pairs.......and so it continues...