The Slower Road

June 24, 2013

gorgeous horses

Posted by Jennifer under CIAT Cuts, horses & driving
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As you may’ve heard, we have our CAA Carriage Festival, here at the Kentucky Horse Park, THIS week.

And I’m working on the August issue of The Carriage Journal and this year’s issue (much larger and more involved than previous issues) of our World on Wheels journal … plus all the usual day-to-day memberships, e-newsletters, etc. So I still owe you some stories, and lots and lots of photos, from our May visit to this year’s CIAT at Cuts, France.

Here’s one more teaser: While at Cuts, we were fortunate to meet a few members of the human and equine families of this spectacular Spanish dressage horse.

This beautiful boy, the off-side horse in the pair (the one in the foreground in this photo), is a member of Fuego’s horse-family.

June 22, 2013

a lazy afternoon

Posted by Jennifer under Lexington & KHP, miscellaneous
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I ran out of time yesterday to prepare a blog post. And my to-do list is about a mile long.

But it’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m stealing some time to sit with a book in one of my favorite summer spots: the sofa in the shady corner of our front porch. This is my view:
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I hope you’re having just as lovely a Saturday…

June 20, 2013

our third annual festival

Posted by Jennifer under CAA Carriage Festival, horses & driving, Lexington & KHP
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This year’s CAA Carriage Festival — a celebration of traditional turnouts, carriage driving, antique carriages and cars, and more — begins one week from tomorrow. Also tomorrow, I’ll be getting the electronic files for the show program ready to ship off to the printer. And so I’ve been going through the photos I took at last year’s Festival to look for images to illustrate the program, and at least one to feature on the cover.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while, or if you’ve scrolled back through (a lot of) previous posts, you may remember some of these, but I thought it would be fun to take a quick look back at last year’s event.

If you’ll be in the Lexington area next weekend, join us at the Kentucky Horse Park for our third annual CAA Carriage Festival! (Click here for the full schedule.)

June 19, 2013

at the beginning of the road

Posted by Jennifer under early roads, history, travel / destinations
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While driving back yesterday from a short visit to Baltimore, A.J. and I stopped for lunch in lovely little Cumberland, Maryland. It was here, beginning in 1818, that travelers heading westward were able to set out on the then-brand-new National Road.

We even found this marker commemorating the road to Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), which is considered the first national highway. (The 1811 on the marker is when construction of the road began.) …

And here are a few other photos of Cumberland’s old downtown …

… and, just for fun, a photo of the front window at the shop selling Curtis’s famous Coney-Island hot dogs … since 1918!

June 17, 2013

… and one more

Posted by Jennifer under carriages / carriage types, history, reference
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Here’s another view of Main Street in Littleton, New Hampshire, again c. 1908.

This photo features a number of horse-drawn vehicles, most of which are drawn by single horses. But parked by the sidewalk in the foreground are both a light delivery wagon, which appears to be hitched to a pair, and a three-seat Summer Resort Wagon hitched to a four-in-hand team.

The Resort Wagon in the photo looks remarkably like this one, from the Elkhart Carriage & Harness Mfg. Company’s 1907 catalog:

In his Carriage Terminology book, Don Berkebile wrote the following caption to accompany this image:

“This three-seat Platform Wagon or Platform-spring Wagon was called a Summer Resort Wagon by the manufacturer, giving some indication of the uses to which it was put. It was offered with a black body on a red or dark green gear, and imitation leather trimming, for $77.”