I'm in Canada! After a week of forerunning in Park City, I struck out for new adventures in far away places. I ended up with 54 trips in 14 days in Park City. A grand total of 35 trips from the top as a driver. If you know nothing about bobsled, let me assure you that's a ton. I was glad to have all those reps as a 4-man forerunner though. Somehow I was nominated to be the first forerunner everyday. I was impressed Mike, the head sled honcho up top, had that much confidence in my driving abilities. It still boggles my mind that everyone's runners and sleds that cost thousands of dollars are allowed to go based on my say so as a forerunner. So much responsibility! The weather was gorgeous until 4-man day. Then we had whiteout conditions. I'm talking snowing sideways. I'm talking can't really see Curve 1 conditions. My visor fogged in Curve 6, and I drove over half the track by feel. And we made it across the finish line. I was very, very glad for all those trips at that point. The rest of forerunning was pretty uneventful.
My stress relief is to bake, but we didn't have a mixer. Lemon cupcakes!
Good thing we had strong man arms to help be beat the cream cheese frosting.
Sineaid with her twin. We found whatever this was in the garage we were keeping our sleds.
Lulu Little Blue. She's a beauty.
Here's a shot into the nose of the D-Rings I use to steer the sled.
My first shiny race sanded runner of the season.
Brittney and Val forerunning 2-man race day.
Colin Coughlin in his first 2-man race ever. He was on tour as a forerunner last season.
Awards Ceremony
USA topped the podium all 4 races. Nice work Codie!
Bree took first in both women's races. Just leave that American flag up there!
My sad bobsled hands. Good thing I have a bobsledders best friend to stop the bleeding. Duct tape.
I hadn't quite figured out what to do with my arms during a driver's load. This is the aftermath.
As for the rest of the adventure, it was anything but. It snowed for 48 hours straight in Park City, and I had a little rental car living on a mountian. Not a great combo. The girls helped me dig it out on Saturday, and I made it down to Park City to return it. Anna, one of the brakeman, has a little Prius. Since the snow plow had been going all day, we made it back up the hill and parked along the road. We had planned to leave at 3 am to get to Berit's house in Salt Lake and take off for Calgary from there. Apparently the plow didn't run any more after we parked, and it continued to come down. We came out and the car was buried under another 6 inches of powder. Great.
Kelsey and I cleared the car off and kicked a path free for the tires to touch ground. We loaded up and gave it a shot. No luck. Great. So, we decided to push. Kelsey and I are behind the car, and we get it out onto the road and jump in. No luck. Great. So we get back out, start pushing, and make it to the top of the ridge. As the car is still moving, Kelsey runs in 6 inches of snow and jumps in the back seat. After she's in, I run and jump in the front seat. Voila! We made it over the ridge and everything was downhill from there. It was a crazy ride down to Salt Lake on the freeway, but we made it there. Once we got to Berit's house, we loaded up our stuff in the trailer with our sleds and struck out for Canada in a snowstorm.
Instead of 14 hours, it took us about 17 hours. Plus a few hours for eating and gas/restroom breaks. We didn't get to Calgary until 12:30am. Such a long, long day for 5 girls in a quad cab truck. The bobsled boys we were staying with in Park City decided they were going to leave at 6am. Well, by the time they tried to leave, they couldn't even get their Yukon out of the driveway. They ended up waiting around until 10am when the snow plow started to run. They had given me so much grief all week about not having 4 wheel drive, and they were the ones that got stuck. Ironic? While we were digging the car out at 3am, Kelsey and I noticed a taxi cab just hanging out in the street. We thought it was strange they would be waiting to pick anyone up at 3am in a snowstorm, but we were pretty preoccupied with getting our own vehicle out. Turns out, Caleb (one of the bobsled boys staying with us) had taken a cab home at 1am, and the cab got stuck. It sat there till the plow came at 10am to dig it out. No one pieced all this together till yesterday when we were all talking about it over lunch. Poor guy!
Ready to roll.
Montana
Berit's mandatory stop at Taco John's in Butte, Utah. Yum!
Montana rest stop
Do people really strap their children to the back of rest stop doors?
Oatmeal from a machine. Just wrong.
Supper at Montana's in Canada. Ironic.
Yesterday was my first trips down Calgary's track as a driver. If you weren't around for my trip to Calgary for America's Cup last year, it was a doosy. Check out my awesome bruise pics Bring It Back To America! Kaitlyn and I crashed...a lot. I'm not going to lie, I really didn't want to do that to anyone as a driver. It was not a fun experience. And to top it off, I've never gone directly off the top of any track. In Placid and Park City, we started at a lower start and worked our way up to the top. Last night, Berit and I just went for it. Craig Bascue was kind enough to walk us off the top. Anna and I sat in, and we were off to the races. I'd studied the track and watched POV (point of view), but I was unprepared for how fast the track was coming at me. We almost rolled out of Curve 8. We came out on 2 bunks, I jerked my head and shoulders to the right, and we miraculously flopped down on all 4 runners again. Crazy! But we made it across the finish line. The second run was so much better. A little crazy in the kreisel, but other than that, a much better run. Since I crossed the finish line with both of us in the sled both runs, I'm qualified to race this week! Wahoo!!! I was dancing around all evening. So excited!!! I'm glad I have 4 more runs to figure a few things out before race day, but we're ready to go.
The girls. Anna, Kelsey, Me, Berit & Sineaid.
Here's the POV I've been watching to give you an idea of what we did last night. Thank you Mr. Heath Spence of the Australian bobsled team for the video and all your advice.
That's the news from Calgary. I'll keep you posted on our adventures the rest of the week.
