camp debbie day one

 

Chloe and I are serious horse lovers, and so is Geoff's sister, Debbie. Now, a lot of people like horses, but not everyone is a full-on LOVER.  There is one sure-fire way to know if you are a true horse lover, kind of a litmus test, if you will. When you drive by a stable do you inhale deeply? If you do, and you love that smell I'm pretty sure you are a LOVER.  So, we three girls bonded over the love back on this trip and since then she and her husband have moved from Santa Barbara to Weldon.  At every family gathering Chloe and Aunt Debbie would chat it up about her horses, and more recently Debbie has been inviting Chloe to come stay for a few days. We started referring to this idea as Camp Debbie and since it is a three hour drive, I couldn't just drop her off, I would really have to stay at Camp Debbie.  You know, to conserve gas and all.  (I totally wanted to go to Camp Debbie! It sounded way too fun.)

Chloe of course chose the first week of summer to go, because she's seven and why would you wait for the best week ever? My being 39 (for two more months!) and practical I thought why not do it towards the end of summer so that you have something to look forward to? But I couldn't really justify putting it off. There would be June gloom here on the coast anyway, let's go! Debbie and Jim were agreeable to this time table, and so the first week of summer was spent at Camp Debbie and man was it a good time.

It's going to take me a couple posts to get through the week because not only was it fun with horses, it was also a photographic dream. So there are lots of pictures.

We arrived around 4pm after a quick stop in Mojave. There were so many places I wanted to stop and take photos on the way, but Chloe wanted to get there so badly, she only humored me in windy Mojave. Actually it was windy everywhere that day. We arrived, unloaded the car, met all the animals, gathered eggs, had a quick ride, fed the horses, and headed into town to pick up Chinese food. Whew!