I think that a lot of people are under the impression that my life is glamorous.  As I write this, I am sitting in a campground that spans about 5 acres and am surrounded by at least 500 people in campers and tents parked 10 inches from each other.  Everyone has a Boston accent except for me.  The campground is located across from Santa’s workshop.  My son is watching Elmo for the 800th time, and I have it memorized.  In fact, when my computer drowned on Monday, my first panic attack came when I realized that Elmo was in the DVD drive- how was I going to explain to Reed that the computer ate Elmo?

I do get to drive around a lot and meet all sorts of people at the clinics that I teach as well as at the campgrounds that I visit in between.  It is usually the in between where the real unglamorous stuff happens.

This week, I caught pneumonia, a sinus infection, my computer drowned in a drop of water, and my trailer slide would not go out- all within 48 hours.  I spent all of July 3rd in a Camping World.  They told me that they could not fix my trailer that day- so I decided to do a sit in with my 2 ½ year old running up and down in the entry way.  They caved.

 The campground that we landed at- Indian River- which sounded very exotic, was not a campground, it was a crime scene- and looked like a staging area for some episode of Criminal Minds.  The residents happened to be very pleasant, but the reception area was caving in, and the pool hadn’t seen water for a long time.  Although I will say we had a lovely river view.

 While we were hooking up to leave the crime scene, my son asked me, “Is Daddy hooking up?”  How does he even know what that means?  We definitely travel and camp a lot.

We dropped my husband off at the airport for him to commute to Germany for work this week, and then we were on our way to the Lantern Resort- I highly recommended Family Campground across from Santa’s Workshop.

As I pulled into the resort in my rig (which is quite big), I did catch a lot of the men’s attention- by my driving skill.  I will admit to it, it was tight.  When I landed in my spot, I had a herd of men around the truck complimenting me on my driving skills.  On the hay wagon ride with Reed several hours later, more men complimented me on my driving.  All of the women remained tight lipped.  I remember one time when I drove my rig with my son in the back through New York City and stopped in Long Island, a trucker pulled up behind me and said he had never seen any woman drive that well and professed his love to me. Horses, driving trailers, it’s a skill set.

I will say that I could drive trailers all day long and teach a clinic with 10 riders on 5 crazy horses and not get a bit tired- however, taking my son solo to Santa’s workshop did me in- particularly the water park portion.  Sheets of freezing New England water were dumped on us at no certain time when the “big bucket” filled at the top of the water park.  I screeched and ran for cover.  My son shrieked in sheer delight.  He insisted on going up to the biggest slide there was which required going through lots of water obstacles in route.  Keep in mind there were a gazillion kids running everywhere.  After an hour of this water torcher, I begged him to go with me and eat ice cream and watch cars- I was desperate!

I admit- I am not a perfect mother, I try.  Horses are a hell of a lot easier.

Kelly Sigler, 3 Star Parelli Instructor
The Hungry Horseman