© Today we watched 2 events at the senior Olympics. Our hotel was a hoot—at breakfast, there were all these old people (these folks were easily in their 70s) sitting around drinking coffee and eating the danishes, talking about their triathlon split times, how high they could vault, racing tactics, etc.
©We headed off to watch mom in her racewalking event first. D, J and I were late in arriving because of some highway antics and a 2-mile-walk from the parking area to the starting line of the race. It was just as well because the race got off to a false start because someone forgot to tell the walkers to turn at the 1km mark. So they just kept going. Uphill. In the summer heat. Finally someone chased down the old folks racewalking into the wild blue yonder, and rallied them back to the start to try it again.
©After the race, mom & dad drove on to Montreal. The rest of us wandered around Pittsburgh for the afternoon until time for the volleyball game. The event was in an un-air-conditioned gym with no working fans. So it was 10 games running at a time, the youngest player was 55, and the oldest was Who Knows how old—easily in their 80s—in a 100+ degree gymacafetorium. The youngster spectators (aka us) whined about the heat. The old folks laughed at the heat and played on. Jess’s mom and grandmother played hard. It was fun, in spite of the heat.
©BTW- Spiderstan’s bike race was 2 days before we arrived. He took 3rd place- go Dad!!!
©Then we drove to Montreal. We got in at almost 3:30 am. At the border crossing, the customs agent asked Dan where we were from. Response: “uuuuuuuuuh…..” (and from the back seats: “NORTH CAROLINA!!”) then he asked how long we’d be in Canada. Response: “Uuuuuuuuuh…… two…..uhhhhhh…..weeks”
(J) We had a ton of fun watching Susie and my mom and Nana show their stuff! We’re sorry we missed Stanton’s awesome performance, but we know he rocked! Also, goddess of Magnesia, pray for us!
(T) I was back in RDU at work with senioritis.
(E) I tried to sleep a bit but failed. I did have the best coffee of the trip that morning. Who’da thought.
I did get to watch Jess’ mom and Nana play volleyball in a gymnasium that had a serious need for air flow.
Making seniors play volleyball with artificially induced heart attack weather doesn’t seem right. It must have been 100 degrees in there. It was so hot it was hard to breath, and I was wearing a kilt. The kilt got lots of smiles. I even got a lecture, a lady asked what I had on under my kilt. I told her ‘Sandals’. She
then proceeded to tell me that I shouldn’t wear anything because it defeats the purpose.
(E)We left the games at 4:30.
The Drive to Montreal was long, although we shortened the AAA trip by turning right at Syracuse.
One highlight was the exit sign for Mexico. Apparently it’s quite close to Canada. We managed to get through customs despite Dan’s apparent amnesia about where we lived. We ran into some torrential
Downpours as we drove, little did we know that they would follow us and stay at the same hotel.
As we approached Montreal Dan and I talked while Jess and Cat slept. We arrived at 3:15 am. With a mileage of 1234. By now my sleep deprivation was turning into an ugly experiment. I fell asleep immediately but woke early. Oh well.
(SRT) My lack of training really paid off. I didn’t come in exactly last in my age group. Ah well, that leaves LOTS of room for improvement in 2007! What I lacked in talent was more than made up for by the enthusiastic cheering of my support team! NO one had the cheerleaders that I had! After the race, SGT & I headed off to Canada while the rest stayed to watch the volleyball.
Here's the start of the 5km racewalk. Actually, this might be the false start. I'm not sure. Look how earnest they all look -- it had to have been the false start.
There goes Texas!!!
This was the only picture we got of Fish, his S.O., and my dad on the day of dad's race. I promise all three of them are more attractive in real life ;-)
This was snapped sometime around midnight. Still over 3 hours to go till Montreal. 
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