December 7th - 11:59pm

Amazing how a road over 7,000 miles from home can look exactly like one I know from driving so many times. Not sure what it struck me tonight so hard but it definitely did. Maybe its knowing Im so close to seeing home. Down to the last 11 days before my flight. Beyond excited to see everyone and everything. For me, its been a very long time to be away. Longest ever actually. Ive learned to love Argentina and will certainly miss the job/horses/people while I am away, but itll be quite grande to get away.
The ring was still flooded from the rain this morning so no riding still. Martin, Camilla and I still had a productive morning though. All of the young horses that were just broke got their own bits, bridles and girths. So all the bridles were changed around, given new owners and fitted to those new owners. Its so strange to walk into the barn tackroom now. The whole back wall of bridles is all new horses. Before I could say Id basically ridden everything broke to ride in the barn. Now, I havent even ridden half! New ones keep going undersaddle everyday. Its definitely going to be different for a bit with Megg gone and all the new horses to get on but Im excited. Most of Rancho Pampa is very repetitive. Each day the same routine and really only rain, clients or a show causes it to change. Not a bad thing at all but definitely interesting to be there through the change. Actually my second big change of horses here but this one is a bit more noticable since its not just a bunch coming to be broke. Its a bunch to be ridden. Fun stuff.
Camilla and I spent the afternoon cleaning the kitchen top to botton then helping Martin with the passports. The Argentine Equestrian Federation uses passport books to keep the records of each horse registered with it. The coggins test, immunizations and the like are all recorded in there. We have to present them at every show to enter the grounds just like a coggins test sheet at home. Well with the new influx of horses now capable of going places, we have a brand new stack of passports! The passport covers are paper and as one can imagine, they can get destroyed quite easily with all the wear and tear of dragging them around. So we put plastic sheets over the covers of each passport to help keep them nice. Almost like laminating them but with sticky plastic instead. Were going to have some more to do at some point since not all the horses have passports yet but I think we got a fair bit accomplished.
After work, everyone (Megg, her dad, Rachel, her parents, Martin, Camilla, Rodrigo and I) went to the Henry Jota Auction at the Aleman. It, as always, was an incredibly fun event with some gorgeous horses to see. The group of amazing people there didnt hurt either. We didnt stay through the whole auction since they were selling 40 horses and it got pretty late but still fun. I believe the highest selling horse of the night was 22k? Somewhere around there. Ive got it all written down downstairs somewhere. Its ended up being a fairly late night (not even close to being in bed yet) so Im sure tomorrow is going to be interesting. Fingers crossed for good weather though!