Oaklawn bound, from Eureka Springs

I haven't been quite so surprised and disappointed since, well, probably November, when I found out that I no longer had a job in the newspaper business.

Spending this weekend in Arkansas with family (and today at Oaklawn Park with Zenyatta and many thousands of her closest friends), I arrived Thursday after a long drive from North Carolina (including two slight detours, one planned and one not so slight) to find that I wouldn't be able to blog from my parents' vacation home at Holiday Island near Eureka Springs. Why? ... Because the house that's wired for everything, has no Internet service. They aren't really here often enough to use it, apparently. Well, not often enough that folks of their generation feel the need to use the Internet.

Being someone who finds it hard to go an hour without checking e-mail, I've been at a loss. I haven't written nor posted my second two lists from this week's Keeneland sale of 2-year-olds in training. But I will; it'll happen.

Right now, I need to traverse Arkansas' wonderful highway system -- twisting mountain roads in a state where apparently by law at least three times per trip you are required to find yourself behind a picking truck pulling a tractor, or a mobile home on a flatbed, or some other wide load.

That means the "fast" way from Eureka Springs to Hot Springs is 227 miles and 4 hours, 32 minutes. The "short" way is 198 miles and 4 hours, 54 minutes.

Considering it's now 9:37 a.m. and Race 1 is to go off at 1:30 p.m., I'm already behind.

(P.S. Filed from the McDonald's parking lot in Eureka Springs; thanks, Ronald, for the free WiFi.)