The Strategic Plan towards 2016 OD

Time Factor: 22 months or there about...

That sounds like a long ways off, but let me tell you the earth flies around the sun much faster when you are fifty-ish than it did at twenty-ish.  You blink and half a year is gone.

Financial :  About $2100 should get the job done.  It sounds high, but not factoring in the preparatory rides necessary to even "think" about pointing at the OD.  I might be under estimating if anything.

Looking at that reasonably as setting aside about a hundred a month into the OD bucket can and we should have it.   I will be auctioning off a butt kicking halter bridle/ breastcollar set so stay tuned for that one.  It is hot lipstick pink and black, with matching reins.   Not sure yet if it will be an ebay auction or silent auction off of this blog.  If I'm lucky enough that Two Horse Tack accepts my work, I'll have a good little down payment on this trip by June 2015.  So that's a start!

Personal Fitness: I will have to keep working on this.  My weight loss goal went well and suddenly faltered, and then leveled off.  So I'm back up to 151 which is a total loss of about six pounds.  People...I'm not eating much!  So I guess I will have to move more,  ride more and knock myself in the head less.  Eleven pounds more and ability to maintain and I'll say that is good enough.  I'm sure Journey would appreciate even a total 15 pounds less to carry.

Lesser goals:   I need to continue towards our 50 mile ride each year goal, so I guess I can't totally set aside 2015.  We need at least on good 50 completion.  That said, we will continue working on some skill sets which includes a lot and I mean A LOT of hill work.  I figure we need to have a solid 4500 foot of climb on each of our long rides to even daydream about OD.  We also need to be able to climb in the heat and humidity.  In all honesty I'm not sure Journey has that in her.  So 2015 will be the summer to find out.   I'm hoping that I can find someone going to OD in 2015 that could use a crew person.  I'd like to drive down, get the lay of the land, meet some people, learn how the vetting procedures flow, how the holds work, get an eye for the scope of the terrain,  pilfer a trail map (though I know that is changeable), take some photos, and in my down time maybe get a few ride stories.    SO IF YOU ARE GOING TO Old Dominion  2015 and you need a crew person, please email me privately...I'd love to join your team (any distance).

The bigger sticky wicket looking forward is the situation with our truck.  It runs fine for an old truck, but with an old truck you never can be above 70% sure when you turn the ignition, or start down the highway if the thing will make it from point A to point B.  It may be fine...but I'd sure like to lower my risk if I can of a calamity of that nature.   So we will have to either a) look at getting a newer truck b) pouring some money into the truck we have or c) hitch a paid ride with someone who is passing through Indiana anyway.  That aspect is totally up in the air.  The trip to Virginia is about 600 miles which would take the better part of a day.  I do have concerns about Journey going that long riding in a stock trailer which has no shocks to speak of and would hammer her to no end getting there.   But then, I generally worry more about her, than myself.

All of this is contingent on my health holding, LSEGH's health holding, the horse making it through another winter of hacking and coughing...which has already started intermittently now that hay has been introduced, and finally financial considerations.  It is a dream and a desire, but certainly not carved into the limestone.  It's a bucket list thing.  That is all.