Missouri

e had all been on the road now for more than three months. The close quarters and long hours were beginning to take their toll on the whole team, with the exception of the horses. The adrenaline we’d felt at the start had dwindled away, and we’d begun to realize how far we still had to go.

The farther east we rode, the harder it was to complete a day’s ride. Everyone wanted to stop and talk. We knew that we had to talk about the rainforest at every opportunity, but we also had to make mileage. Then there was the rain. It came down in sheets so thick sometimes we couldn’t see 20 feet in front of us.

My journal that day contained three comments.

1. Bazy Tankersley, the owner of A1-Marah Arabians, told me before we left, “In this kind of event, to finish is to win.”
2. Immediately after that, I wrote: “Nothing of any real significance was ever accomplished that did not require extreme sacrifice.”
3. Finally I wrote: “if number one and number two are true, then keep it together, whatever it takes.”