Friday July 28, 2000: Day 3 - At The Horse Park
Well, I spent the morning at the horse park. I swear I must have walked a few miles and stood in line for several hours. :( It wasn't much fun, and I may just skip this part next year.
Here's a photo of people waiting to get in before 9am. I took the pic at 8:50. You can see I'm in the parking lot; what you can't see is that I'm in that same line. It stretched half again as long behind me. Madness. And, unlike last year, you couldn't sneak through the visitor's center to get in - NOBODY was getting in early. Hurry up and wait!
I hurried over to the Breyer tent to pick up my special runs. The tent, as usual, was crowded, and lines were long. One thing I just missed out on was a glossy speckled grey 5-gaiter - very tiny little dapples with a dark (black?) m/t and shading over his whole body. It was truly spectacular. They had them in a big box out in the main Breyer tent, so I don't believe they were BF-only specials - I asked one Breyer person, who thought they were going to be an Xmas SR. I really really hope so, cuz heck, I want one. Sadly everyone grabbed 'em up, and I had just gotten there and reached into the box and found it empty - someone had just gotten the last one. So, oh well. I guess I can wait a few months til the xmas SR's come out...
Oh yes... here's a photo of two of the keychain models. I did take a pic of the other two but my camera seems to have crashed (if you can believe that) as I was doing so, so I lost the pic. I think one of the others was a saddlebred, and one other mold, in metallic silver and metallic blue. Maybe I'll be able to get a pic tomorrow...
Then I headed into the covered arena. Here's a look at a typical booth. Lots and lots of OF's, and lots of people.
A look down the concourse of booths.
I went upstairs to check out the gallery. My camera just was not
cooperating so I didn't get too many pix up there, but I did get this of
some carts made by Reaves J. Armstrong of Armstrong Woodworks. Very nice stuff.
Here's another cart by the same guy.
This'll make you weep. Ron & Sherri Lewis are auctioning off these decorators on behalf of an estate (I didn't get the entire story on that). All mint or nearly so, all with original boxes. Wow.
I watched some riding demos in the arena, but again low light and an uncooperative camera meant I didn't get any pix. This particular pic came out nice - I don't know who the people are, I mainly took the pic of the horse, cuz he's a champagne color. I'd never actually seen one in real life before...
A storm blew into the park at around 10:30am, and they made everyone leave the Breyer tent and return to the covered arena. Something about the tent's main poles being aluminum and the tent not being grounded. So, everyone came inside, and waited and waited. It rained for maybe 5 minutes. They didn't let us back into the tent for an entire hour, though. Really dreadful. But at least it was cool, if a bit humid. The storm did bring in a nice cool breeze though.
I was VERY happy to see that they had put some of the auction models on display in the glass cases of the KHP visitor's center. Here are some pix of them. This one is the best one of the lot, IMHO, and I want to try and get him... though I expect he'll be among the most expensive. He's the Lonesome Glory in a pinto dapple grey, with tiny little dapples. *drooool*
Here's a "Wild Lacy Dapple Charcoal PAM", glossy, painted by Tom Bainbridge (in the Breyer factory, I presume). Behind her you can sorta see a glossy red chestnut fighting stallion. I took pix of him too, but will upload them later.
A Dark Palomino Cigar
A shaded bay pinto cantering welsh pony. Behind her you can see a sort of rainbow striped zebra. Straaaange....
Whew. That's all for now. I hope I have the energy to face the swap meet tonight... the PS auction is tonight too. I'll try and take pix and record bids on those.
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-- J. Kira Hamilton (kira@lightsphere.com)