Showing in the Southwest

There are pros and cons about showing in the Southwest.  The cons are mostly the travel time and distance.  Miss Leslie moved to Alabama and she likes to rub in the fact that she sleeps in her own bed most show weekends, I mostly tell her to shut up :-).

Travel time is normally 4 or more hours away for a show.  The closest one to me is held in Alamogordo, NM which is an hour away.  Those shows are the 1st weekend in October and typically I have to miss them for one reason or another.  This year I’ll miss them because I’m going to be the Chief Ring Steward for the Toller Nationals in Claremont, CA.    So I miss the “local” shows and when my own club has their show in El Paso I’ll miss that one too because I’ll be working it, that means my next closest shows are in Albuquerque, NM which is 4.5 hours away.

The Pros about showing in the Southwest is that our weather is normally OK, the fall shows are typically outdoors and nice.    The biggest Pro about showing in the Southwest is the Cardigan folks.  We have a great group of people who have really nice dogs and it is a pleasure to spend time in their company.  Since the dogs are of quality,  wins are passed around, everyone has a chance.  We spend a lot of time hanging out with each other learning and sharing.  We help each other out and I know that if I can’t win I’m happy when one of my SW group wins.    We have Cardi Parties at showsites, we try and park together and just generally have a really good time.  We have yahoo group that we use to share, plan and just goof around.

Isn’t that why we do this, to have a really good time?

So here is a shout out to all the SW Cardigan folks, I’m glad to spend my weekends with y’all!