Today was... just as tiring as anticipated! But it was a good day.

Neither of us slept very well in the weird motel... though not really the motel's fault. When I have to get up at a different time to do something out of the ordinary, I struggle to fall/stay asleep. Alex and I both estimate we each got about four hours total.

My favorite thing from the motel:



This hand-drawn (and color coded in crayon) emergency exit map, haha. I like how... telling it is that there are rooms just labeled with the people who live there/the companies that apparently rent out the rooms. (Zero shade at people living in the motel, just kind of funny that there are people who are SUCH a set presence they're labeled on the map in every room.)

Also, let's be honest, the hand-drawn map gives big Silent Hill vibes.

But we managed to drag ourselves to the show hall in time - early, even! - which gave us more time to set up than we usually wind up with. The morning was EXTREMELY hectic - there were three different divisions we were showing in, plus Alex was judging a fourth division, so it was basically up to me to get things into the right class at the right time. It was SO MUCH back and forth through the hall.



(Again, this is the admittedly deeply silly hobby of showing... model horses. As if they were real horses. Basically, we look at the sculpture and paint jobs of various horses, and determine which real-life breeds they could most resemble, or which individual models best exemplify the standards of those breeds. Other classes are more typical for collectible toys - looking at the rarity of particular models, condition for their age, or things like.
It's more Alex's thing than mine, but I do genuinely enjoy it... it lets me use otherwise useless knowledge about the differences in horse breeds, including color genetics and things like that. And hey, I collected and played with Breyer horses as a kid... now I can just keep doing it, lmao.)

After the divisions Alex was judging were finished, a different division opened up that meant we were showing in four at once, but at least both of us were available to ferry things around, ha.

I definitely physically feel the long day - my feet hurt, and unfortunately my back is REALLY acting up - I wrenched it carrying heavy boxes yesterday, and today was a lot of getting up and kneeling down and carrying and such. Oof, that's going to suck for a while.

It wasn't Alex's most successful show day in terms of wins - he wound up with 14 NAN cards (cards awarded to first- and second-place winning models, which entitles that horse to compete in the "North American National" show: an annual, national, extremely competitive "best of the best" show put on my the main organization devoted to the hobby.)

He did have one sectional champion.

And I was quite tickled that the model I painted in February got second in the custom decorator class! I was wildly surprised, because there were some MUCH more elaborate and dramatic entries in the class, including ones by actual professional artists. Surprised, but very pleased!

We were worried about the drive back, since we were both so damn tired, though we both kind of hit a second wind, and it didn't end up being a problem at all.

We saw a single grazing pronghorn, which legitimized the trip to Wyoming in my mind, haha. No bison, though.


The sunset was quite dramatic. I liked these rays - it looks so much like a classic stylized sunset, ha.

It was after 8:00 by the time we got to my mom's to pick Cy up, and right around 9:00 by the time we got everything unloaded from the truck and back into the apartment. Oof. Way too much carrying and walking and lifting.

Cy did fine at my mom's. I'll be heading back there sometime tomorrow to start celebrating Taylor's birthday. But first... gonna hopefully get some damn sleep, ha.