It's Never Dull Around Here

We were scheduled to fly to Boise on Friday morning at 6am. Thursday evening I was at our school's annual athletic awards banquet and got a text message from Alaska Air saying our flight from Victoria to Seattle was cancelled because of a mechanical problem, so we had to reschedule the whole trip as we wouldn't be able to make our connection to Boise anymore. Nothing like a little drama to start the weekend - it's never dull around here!

I got Jason to call and rebook us, and the next best we could do was leave Victoria at 830, wait several hours in Seattle and finally get in to Boise at 3pm. Not exactly what I would call optimal when we're racing the next day, but it looked like the only option. Sometimes the drawback of living on an island is dealing with stuff like that. It's never dull around here!

Friday morning our flight got into Seattle a bit ahead of schedule and we got through customs pretty quickly. I thought we had a hope of making the 10am connection to Boise even though we had less than half an hour at that point. I convinced an agent at the customs area that we could make it and she agreed to rebook us (even though we still had to clear security again and get to the other side of the airport), and the customs baggage handler offered to speed our bike bags through the TSA check and get them over to the connecting flight. It took FOREVER to get through security as a big 747 from Japan was just getting through customs as well, and then we had to sprint from one end of seatac to the other and just made the flight. We wondered if our bikes had made it, and just as we were walking from the tarmac up the stairs onto the plane, the baggage handler from customs drove over and gave us the big thumbs up! We ended up getting into Boise just after noon, a couple hours after our original cancelled flight, but way better than 3 that afternoon. It's never dull around here!

Once in Boise, we headed to the convention centre to pick up our race packages, then down the street to the new Whole Foods to grab some food. We checked into our hotel and built the bikes up, and then drove up to Lucky Peak Reservoir for a short ride and check in our bikes for the next day. During our ride we stopped on the side of the road for Jason to do a quick adjustment to his derailleur, and it was so hot while we were standing there that the pavement was melting underneath us. We ended up with tar on our tires from the melted asphalt - a bit of foreshadowing for the next day's weather (more to come on race day later). We checked in our bikes, went for a short run, then back to the hotel, pack our gear bags for the next day and go for dinner. By the time we got everything done it was almost 10pm and we were exhausted! It's never dull around here!

 

 

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