Kat's travels and adventures

Namo...what? You've probably never heard of this.  NaMoPaiMo stands for National Model Painting Month, and takes place during the month of February. You basically dedicate this month to paint one model horse and achieve a goal you always wanted but never reached. While some people just sign up because they might win a prize and choose a model that doesn't challenge them, most pick a challenge. Some use this as an opportunity to finally try painting their own models, others to learn new painting technics or new paint mediums or a new scale that they haven't painted yet. One may note that this isn't a contest or a competition, everyone who finishes their model in February is basically a winner. There a prizes for a few people that outdid themselves with their pieces. Most of this happens via Facebook where people post their progress and give tips to those who need help or struggle a little, but you can also participate without it. I know a lot of people that are

A friend of mine qualified for southwestern championships during the championships in Hessen. Maintal is relatively close by, so we decided to accompany and support her. The event started during mid-day, they possibly might not have had enough participants to start in the morning.  As much as I wished to be able to warm up with her, after my accident on October 30 I am on complete rest. I stumbled on a staircase and pulled both inner and outer ligaments on one foot pretty badly. Hope I'll recover soon. The day continued further and further, but my friend hasn't had a single fight yet and they had fights of every weight category but hers.  Eventually, her weight class started in the late afternoon. This was her second competition in not less than 10 years and she'd just had half a year off of training. She ended up being 3rd, which is a rather good accomplishment.  Just like being in the top 3 of your weight category of your states' championships qua

Unlike last year, this time I planned my visit at the Friesian Horse Inspection in Schlüchtern months before. I was the official photographer this year, so I had a little bit more preparations to do this year. We started the day with Ibop tests, which are basically friesian-specific riding tests. This time, we only had dressage entries, but driving tests are often just as popular as dressage. Like most riding arenas, this one had almost no windows. Schlüchtern is located in a valley, and at this time of the year the sun rises quite late. There was no light during the first two tests, but it got better after an hour. The fact that friesians are always black didn't help the lighting problem in the morning.  The award ceremonies then took place outside.   After the ceremonies we continued with the actual inspections. The individual horses are inspected seperately and then may be integreted into the different studbooks. The foals might be entered into the foal books, t

After the 'Check Engine' light went on Saturday evening, we had decided to start our way home immediately and stay in Gallup for the night instead of going further east. The distance from Gallup to Phoenix is about 320 miles.   We didn't do a lot of stops on our way back to Phoenix, but every now and then we saw some horses and pulled over. After all four days I can say we were fortunate enough to see and photograph horses on every day. Arizona is one of the few places where streets are going strait to as far as you can see. Later we ran into a traffic jam caused by a truck that flipped over and blocked both lanes, but it didn't cost us too much time. It would've been different if we came out of California though! But also due to the earthquake that happened while we were in New Mexico I am glad we chose to go the other direction.

We left Durango pretty early in the morning in order to have more time in Chaco Culture. Unlike the last time Caroline and John were here, we didn't see any wild horses roaming around as we drove over 16 miles of unpaved road this time.  None of the ruins have a roof anymore and many walls got (partly) destroyed over time, but it is still impressive how many stones were used to build all of this. I wonder how long it took the people back then to build all this? A misunderstanding led Caroline and I not only climp up the crack in the sandstone up to the mesa and down but walk to the Pueblo Bonito Overlook where we got this incredible view.  Caroline currently takes photos of her newest pair of socks that she made for their river guide in Croatia. Climbing up the crack was not much of a deal but climbing down was pretty scary. We also met some people climbing up halfway and had to get out of their way. This turns out to be a challenge as the crack is so slim that two

We started friday way earlier than we thought, who would have guessed we wake up at 6 in the morning after we went to bed by midnight?  Anyways, on our way towards Colorado we stopped at the Antelope House Overlook where we found two cicadas stitting in a tree. Caroline was able to hold one on her hand while it was still buzzing. John has got a photo of it on his Blog .  From the right angle the cicadas wings reflected the sunlight and glittered in many different colours.  The overview of Canyon de Chelly from the Antelope House Overview is pretty spectacular.From far away we could hear cows mooing and it took us a while to identify the sounds as moos. On our way through to Colorado we came across Shiprock, the remains of a 27 million year old volcano. As I tend to get both motion sick and sleepy on long drives we took a lot of little stops to strech our legs, do a couple starjumps and take a few photos like this one of 'Sleeping Ute'.  My first time in Colora