"News To Me" helps the Amtrekker get home

Back in April of LAST YEAR Eric introduced you to Brett Rounsaville... aka: The Amtrekker. That's Brett on the left in the pic above, followed left to right by yours truly, Betty Ann Abblitt and Ginger Abblitt (more about Betty Ann and Ginger later). Brett was traveling across country, relying on the kindness of strangers to cross 50 experiences off a list he'd created. Things like: "Tell Donald Trump you're fired", "enter a hot dog eating contest", "see a freak show" and 47 other equally strange and wonderful things. The catch? He could not return home until after he'd completed the list. And he didn't.

We've been keeping track of Brett since we featured him on "News To Me." A few weeks ago I noticed that he only had a few things left to do on his list: "Make moonshine," "Scuba dive in the Atlantic Ocean," and "Ride a horse through a covered bridge." I don't know anything about Scuba or Moonshine... but I knew of a couple covered bridges around Atlanta. And how hard could it be to find a horse? So I shot Brett and email and said I thought I could help him out. Turns out he was going to be in the Southeast to do the scuba diving, so getting to Atlanta after that would be doable.

Now I had to find a horse.

Actually finding horses wasn't tough, but my budget for getting Brett across a covered bridge on one wasn't even enough to get me something off the Dollar Menu, and horse rental (I learned) ain't cheap. I called university equestrian teams, police departments with mounted units, I called UPS to see if "Big Brown" was available (true... I really did). The calls went something like this, "Hi, my name is Grayson and I have a friend who has a list of 50 things he has to do before he can go home. Can we borrow your horse? Oh, and can you trailer it out to a covered bridge in Mableton? For free? This Tuesday?" The most popular response was, "I'm sorry, you need a horse for what? Who is this?" Which was quickly followed by, "I don't think we can help you."

I sent Brett a dejected email saying I wasn't sure this was going to happen after all but he was already en route to Atlanta. There was no turning back. He'd set things in motion for a huge homecoming and end-of-Amtrekker party in California on October 25th and that was only a week away. What had I committed myself too? What if I screw this up? What if Brett doesn't finish his list because I over estimated the ease of finding a horse? Keep reading for more pictures

Out of frustration and just to be funny I updated my status on Facebook: "Grayson needs a horse." Ten minutes later, Cameron Baird who arranges for all the guests to appear on "Prime News" commented on my status. She might know someone. A friend of her's who works in Public Relations also happens to be fairly well connected in the Atlanta horse owner scene. That friend sent out an email blast and within an hour I had 2 potential horse candidates! It was amazing. After weeks of phone calls and emails with no luck, one email from Wendy Guarisco of the Guarisco Group, LLC and not only did I have a horse... I had TWO!

Horse #1 fell through the next day, but Betty Ann Abblitt and her daughter Ginger stepped right up to fill the void and offered to bring a beautiful and very mellow 20 year old Appaloosa named Danket out to a covered bridge near the Silver Comet Trail north of Atlanta. Unbelievably and against all odds it was really happening.

At 3:30pm we all converged on the historic covered bridge in Mableton, Georgia. Ginger unloaded Danket, saddled him up, Brett hopped on board, Betty Ann and I blocked traffic, a friend Brett had met earlier in his travels named Chase manned the video camera, and just like that Brett was crossing the bridge and the second to last thing off his list! You can read Brett's account of the afternoon on his blog.

It was a surreal and really awesome thing! Here we were... all of us (except for Ginger and Betty Ann) total strangers, coming together in suburban Atlanta to perform a stunt that might seem, to the outside observer, entirely pointless. Which I think is really the cool thing about Brett's list... it's not so much about the items on it, but more about how those items get crossed off. It would have just been a typical Tuesday, but now Brett, Betty Ann, Ginger, Chase, Danket and I all have a cool story to tell. And so do the people who participated in 49 other scenes just like ours! Thanks Brett!

Brett is officially home now. He celebrated the end of his journey with a bash at his home in Clovis, CA. What's next? He's got some ideas, but I'll let him tell you about those: amtrekker.com.