Monday

Greetings from the weekend traveler.

The trip to the Twin Cities was a great success. 1 completed the marathon in just 32 seconds over four hours, a new personal record. And she was able to walk away under her own power. The day was near perfect. Probably a little warm to be perfect marathon weather, but heat was not a big problem. Not a lot of wind.

We were successful in seeing her and her running partner at five separate points during the race. Being at the interim points at the proper time is always problematic; the girls need to run predictable times, and the watchers need to snake through traffic in some often congested areas. I had done so on a bike in Chicago, but had had good success by car in 1's prior Twin Cities marathons so I hadn't packed the bike this time either. In the end, 2 and I were lucky for all the designated spots while Matt and Mom got caught up in traffic once and missed the 19 mile meeting. I may have broken more parking laws than Matt, and 2 was an excellent co-pilot.

The road part of the trip was long, both going and coming. Friday afternoon traffic one day, and just tiredness on the drive home. But the new wheels were comfortable and we did a couple of CD books. One actually. The second one is still in the player. 1's short-cut doesn't work on Friday afternoons.

On Saturday, I had a chance meeting with an MU sophomore soccer player from Bettendorf who was the star of our AAU bball team when 4 was in grade school. She just happened to walk through the baseball stands while I was there for a game that Matt was umping. We had a nice chat and I was able to stop at her game for a while Sunday after the marathon, getting to talk with her folks too. Unfortunately, her team played poorly while I was there. But she is the team's leading scorer.

The hotel produced the worst two nights of sleeping for me in years. Surprisingly, it wasn't my back. Just lousy rest. I had the sofa-bed in the living room of our suite. It will be my last sofa-bed experience. Everyone take note. I will always want to visit you. But if the accomodations are to be the sofa-bed, book a room at the Marriott.

Another by-product of the trip is the bug splattered front of my car. Big wash in store tonight.

2 and I had a little excitement as we were approaching parking for the end of the marathon. A very poor driver pulled out from a side-street and forced me to put both left side tires on to the 5-6 inch raised medium of a four laned major street to avoid contact. Total inattention. We were lucky. I figured that it would ruin a tire. But we escaped.

As an interesting point, I thought afterwards that the incident could have been totally avoided if I had elected to take a different route to the finish of the race, as 2 and I had considered. Or the timing would have been put off if I had stopped in at a Mickey D's for a pit stop, as I had also considered just a few minutes before the near-accident. This is one of those moon-and-stars things about the place and the time of events. Maybe in this case, since I had two specific alternatives that would have taken me away from that scene, the powers-that-be said, "Let's give the LT a break today". Not the worst outcome.

Speaking of timing, let me remind everyone that very few good things happen out in public after midnight. It is usually worse if alcohol has been involved. This may even qualify as a Man Rule. Although most of those guys around that table have histories that make the rule one of the "Do as I say, not as I do" variety. In any event, its a good rule.

OK. I'm out of here. Hope everyone has a good evening. More tomorrow.

Be careful out there.