2008 Blogs
Last weekend started off with a bang. On the bus from Boulder with Ben and Alex from Clif, they were able to help me drag my bags around. We made our way to the ticket counter and I found out I hadn't been ticketed. I had scheduled my ticket with a $25-off coupon, which as instructed, I sent in "within 24hrs of the reservation". Apparently it was lost in the mail. In the end, all was fine, and I got a seat. But then we had an hour delay. Then a two hour delay, and untimately a 3 1/2 hour delay on our flight to Newark. Arriving 3 1/2 hours late to Newark, Ben, Alex, Brady, Donn from Challenge, and I stumbled to baggage claim. I was charged $125 for my bikes, and an extra $15 for my wheel bag, and in 4+ hours at DIA, the bags never made it on. I never thought a single flight, with zero connections could be such hell. We grabbed some dinner and came back to the airport at 10pm to pick up the bags which arrived on a later flight. An hour to the hotel in East Windsor and I was ready to pass out.
I was one of the first people to pre-ride the course on Friday and it degraded each lap. Sure enough, on Saturday the course was one long mud pit. It felt like we ran half the course, but it was probably about 25% running. I couldn't get out of my own way either day and was happy when the weekend was over. After the weekend of mud slogging, Kathy and I found ourselves on the battlegrounds of Gettysburg, PA. In between the NJ GPs and Southampton, Kathy and I are crashing at our mechanic's house. We've seen a bunch of historical sites, such as hospitals,
Barlow Knoll,
Cemetery hill,
cannons,
and the Eternal Peace Light memorial. 
You can kind of see a hint of the Peace flame at the top of this picture:
It reads:
"Peace eternal in a Nation United"
Another side reads this:
I was a horribly terrible history student in high school, so I think my old teacher Craig Kaufman would be decently pleased. I've been so intrigued that Kathy and I even did some re-enacting:
Some pretty cool stuff fo sure. I wonder if I could pass history class now.
I was one of the first people to pre-ride the course on Friday and it degraded each lap. Sure enough, on Saturday the course was one long mud pit. It felt like we ran half the course, but it was probably about 25% running. I couldn't get out of my own way either day and was happy when the weekend was over. After the weekend of mud slogging, Kathy and I found ourselves on the battlegrounds of Gettysburg, PA. In between the NJ GPs and Southampton, Kathy and I are crashing at our mechanic's house. We've seen a bunch of historical sites, such as hospitals,
Barlow Knoll,
Cemetery hill,
cannons,
and the Eternal Peace Light memorial. 
You can kind of see a hint of the Peace flame at the top of this picture:
It reads:
"Peace eternal in a Nation United"Another side reads this:
I was a horribly terrible history student in high school, so I think my old teacher Craig Kaufman would be decently pleased. I've been so intrigued that Kathy and I even did some re-enacting:
Some pretty cool stuff fo sure. I wonder if I could pass history class now.
