Saturday, October 6, 2007

Bumpass Trip Report

No, I am not making up the 'Bumpass' thing, there really is a city in Virginia called Bumpass. Also home to Lake Anna, which is actually heated, thanks to a nearby power plant (yet people are more comfortable swimming in there than in the Potomac River?). We spent 24 hours away from home so Ethan could do the Giant Acorn sprint triathlon (750 meter swim, 20k bike, 5k run, please don't ask me to translate that into miles). Many athletes do a race report at the end of their race...kind of a lessons learned...so here's my trip report. I don't know if I learned anything, but there's plenty to tell.

Friday

3:00 PM Pick up kids from daycare and load up the DVD player only to find the second screen has crapped out. Thinking I am the woman for actually keeping the receipt and box (we have bad luck with portable DVD players, a phenomenon I usually blame on Ethan's truck), I soon find out we are 1 month past the warranty. I still intend to give Insignia and Best Buy a piece of my mind. Best Buy really has it coming because when they installed Ethan's Sirius antenna, they broke some insulation and tried to hide it by duct taping it back together and now the truck whistles when we get above 40 mph.

4:30 PM Evan falls asleep in the truck. Never in a million years would I have guessed THAT would have happened, especially not when he was in the middle of a movie.

5:45 PM Arrive at our hotel approximately 90 minutes later than originally planned. Traffic was horrible. And we had access to the wide-open HOV lanes for a good portion of it. Too bad the rest of the trip we didn't get above 40 mph (at least we didn't have to listen to the truck whistling!). Add the fact that I need to use the bathroom and it's a recipe for disaster. We skip check-in and head to a local Italian place for some food. Wasn't very good, but it was close, clean, and the people were nice.

6:20 PM Ethan decides we're going to try and make it to packet pickup, even though it closes at 7 PM and TomTom is telling us it's 40 minutes away. 40 very windy, bumpy minutes away. At some point, Evan says "can we please go where all the other cars are going?" and I'm wondering where TomTom is sending us!

6:57 PM By some miracle, we (all) arrive at packet pick-up, alive and physically well (mentally, a little shaken up). Quite a sunset though!

I told you it was a bumpy ride...
Not a bad view though!

8:00 PM As we pull into the hotel, Eric vomits. Oh joy. I'm quite skilled in vomit containment, and actually get him out of the car and undressed without getting it all over the carseat or myself. Poor Moose does not get off the hook, and he's Eric's #1 bedtime toy.

8:08 PM Settle into the hotel (Ethan and I are also quite skilled at re-arranging a hotel room to make room for the Pack-n-Play and make sure there is a clear path from Evan's bed to the bathroom, including a nightlight). Evan is extremely excited about staying in a hotel (I think he gets this from my mother) and immediately gets into his pajamas and climb into bed.

8:30 PM Eric goes to sleep.

9:00 PM I give up on Evan going to sleep and turn on the TV.

9:15 PM Ethan goes to Doug & Jen's room to help Jen get her triathlon gear organized

9:45 PM I call Ethan and tell him to get back into our room before people start wondering what all the yelling/crying is about

10:00 PM Evan FINALLY falls asleep

There's a whole lot of getting out of bed in the middle of the night to check on kids, pat them on the back, tuck covers in, etc.

6:30 AM (I think) Ethan's alarm goes off and he does his thing

7:00 AM (I think) Ethan tells me to get a move on--sheesh!! ;-)

7:20 AM Evan asks me to please turn off the air conditioning because he is freezing (FYI, if it had been set to a 'normal' temp, we would have been listening to traffic all night). I turn on the heat for a minute to defrost the room

7:30 AM Smoke detector goes off in the room, probably because of the heat. Turns off a minute later after I open the door to the room. A few minutes later, we hear sirens, which Ethan is convinced are coming to our room and yells at me to get my pants on. It was a decent hotel and all, but I really doubt the smoke detector automatically called 911 for us. I am right, the fire department does NOT show up at the door.

8:30 AM We arrive at the triathlon site and Eric throws up. Take him out of the car and he throws up some more. I decide against making Ethan ride his bike home and we all stay (just kidding, Doug and Jen offered to drive him home if I needed to leave with the boyz). Thankfully, this is the end of the vomiting (for today, at least). We find a spot to hang out and watch the swim, and visit with our triathletes a little.


Jen getting into her wetsuit, which is a multi-person ordeal. Ethan needed help too, but he was more sneaky about it so I couldn't get a funny pic of him

Evan and Ethan compare abs

10:00 AM The race starts, and Evan learns the words to 'Who Let the Dogs Out,' much to the joy of the lady sitting next to us with 2 dogs. Eric spots a 'poppy' (puppy) for the 700th time of the morning. And there were not that many dogs there!

10:35 AM After seeing Ethan and Jen make it out of the water, we take a bathroom break. Porta-potties are already pretty gross, but I truly believe they are at their most disgusting after the start of a lengthy athletic event where there are no built-in bathroom breaks. I take Evan into one and am unable to stop him from looking, so we go into another stall and I practically blindfold him to get him to go to the bathroom. Lots of hand sanitizer afterwards. By the way, many many MANY thanks to Doug for helping during this time because there's no way in heck I could have managed going to the bathroom with 2 kids.

11:00 AM We see Ethan coming back from the bike and starting the run!! He kicked ass on the bike and came in much earlier than expected, which is why I have no pictures of it. Evan remarks that he can run faster than the people doing the triathlon.

11:30 AM Ethan finishes! After many circles, we find him at the finish line, hang out for a bit until Jen finishes, have lunch (which Eric does not vomit, although he does eat it with his eyes closed), and head back to the truck.

Ethan heading towards the finish line
Jen getting ready to cross the finish line


1:00 PM Back on the road, Eric passes out the minute we hit pavement, and Evan is happily engrossed in 'Cars.' Traffic is very light and we make it home a little before 3:00 PM. The day is far from over, but, well, I'm tired.

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