By  Heather Lende, Karen's sister-in-law and author of 'If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name' and 'Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs'

I have never been to the Olympic Games before and I am a reluctant traveler. I have taken one long trip in my life, from the east coast where I was born and raised, to Haines, Alaska where I have lived for 29 years. The good news is that my London Olympic companion is a seasoned traveler. My mother-in-law Joanne Lende (Grandma Joanne) has seen her daughter, Karen O'Connor, compete at two other Olympics in Seoul and Atlanta. This will be Karen's fifth, and at 54, she is the oldest U.S. Olympian. "Does this mean I'm the oldest Olympic mother?" Grandma Joanne, who is 80, said, and asked me to book her a hair appointment before we leave. Which isn't really necessary, since she looks like she's at the Kentucky Derby when she's sitting on my Alaskan deck.


Grandma Joanne's Olympic plan, and thus mine, is to arrive a few days early, to acclimate and to experience the city before the huge crush, watch all four days of equestrian eventing, and then stay a few days afterward and find something interesting to see that won't be too hard to find tickets for, like ping-pong, and perhaps take a side trip before heading back home. She does not want to stay for the whole Olympics. Two weeks of watching sporting events in a crowd is a long time. She thinks we should have lunch in Paris one afternoon. The high-speed train only takes an hour. "We could eat in cafe and then go to the Louvre."


We learned on July 2nd that Karen and the horse she rides, Mr. Medicott, had made the team. I know, July 2? Seriously? A little over three weeks before the games begin? But yes, that is when the US eventing team of five horse and rider combinations was picked. The short list of nine riders and 12 horses (some have more than one, most, like Karen's, are owned by people other than the riders) all flew to England a few weeks prior for the final try-outs. The horses went Fed-Ex, in stall-like containers on cargo planes. The riders flew commercial airlines.

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