Below is a photo I took on the way to Manawa where I met Santa Claus (John Dallas Chapman) and Tania Wadzinski.
 I took my trailer to the Hawk manufacturing plant in Manawa and had some stuff done to it that required it stay there over nite. I was lucky enough to have Nancy call Tania ( a friend and former client) and she put me up for the night. Manawa is an hour and half from Antigo where I had spent two nites with Nancy. That was after one night at David and Sue Grill's farm where I left Corde. He will have a cooler life with Alex Pelley, Sue's trainer. I felt I left him in capable hands at a beautiful farm in Northern Wisconsin.
When I drove down to Manawa, I saw beautiful big barns and silos. I stopped at a cheese factory where they were making cheese curds, those squeeky delightful morsals Nancy first turned me on to. When I got to Tania's, she was busily trimming one of her minis. She had an appointment and was leaving me for a few hours so when Santa trotted up in his "sleigh" and invited me for a ride, I jumped in. Afterwards I realized how crazy that was. Fortunately, we made the trek to his home 2 miles from Tania's in his buggy (drawn by a 2 yr old shod hackney mare) without incident but I did see my life flash before my eyes when a 18 wheeler flew by! Santa turned out to have a herd of horses and enjoyed them. Their feet were mostly neglected (but I could say the same about a favorite trimmer friend of mine too).
 I was very impressed with the horses Tania owned.Not only were they slick and healthy looking, their feet were in excellent shape. Tania hadn't gotten to trim a few of them and I volunteered. For someone this age to have this many horses and keep them this healthy and trimmed beautifully is quite an accomplishment.
My trip to Wisconsin required a stop in Indianapolis, halfway. I stayed at Cuttin Up Stables with Mike and Melinda both going up and coming back.
I won't say I'll never go back up to the area again but its pretty unlikely. If I ever do, I would want to fl