Clotheshorse

Travel is easy. Packing is not.

This year's banquet and seminar theme have managed to combine two words that challenge their proximity to one another in the same sentence: beach and banquet.
Not when my carry-on is about the same size as my home office Epsom printer. And let's not even start to think about where the shoes (and laptop) will fit.

Or the camera, since the preposterous pairings of AHP banquets and their themes can result in some really interesting photo ops.

In 2008, the AHP Seminar and Awards were in Saratoga Springs, NY, and the banquet theme was Toga Party. While more than few joking references were made to John Belushi and Animal House, thankfully no one to the best of my knowledge recreated that infamous scene. Although... the Seminar was held at the same hotel where the Dave Mathews Band was playing nearby at SPAC, and we did have a stark naked, soaking wet Rastafarian run down the hall from the indoor pool about 2 a.m. in the morning but that my friends, is a whole other story...

The banquet's AHP members were more suitably attired in togas. White with red capes and gold crowns. All-purple togas. And the banquet favorite, the cammy toga. Yep, military camouflage O.D. green and all. Who was wearing that? All I'll say is, never underestimate a dressage rider...

Those of us in the equestrian publishing industry pin our hair pretty loose as it is, but at the annual Seminar, it's great to let it down and let our inner children out to play.
So a beach-themed banquet? I know I'll find something to pack, and squeeze in another pair of shoes. But most of all, I'll remember a camera.