I'm writing to you from snowy Utah. It's been quite a month, and I've seen more of the US than I can recall. I'm not even sure where to start.
Mom and I drove out to Lake Placid at the end of September. It was a blasty, blast. We deemed it the Fall Foliage Tour. I drove up to Kansas after work on Thursday. Friday we made it to Columbus, Ohio. Kansas. Missouri. Illinois. Indiana. Ohio. What a day!
 |
| Indiana. Perfect weather. Patio. College football. Salad. BBQ bacon burger. Key lime pie. Enough said. |
Saturday was an adventure. We made a side trip and dunked our toes in Lake Erie. You could tell we were the Midwesterners, as we were standing ankle deep in cold water in shorts and sweatshirts. Everyone else at the park was in shoes, pants and coats. It really wasn't chilly enough for all those clothes. We made a stop in Buffalo for supper with Linz and Zach. It was great to see them, check out their abode and eat at one of their favorite restaurants. We drove to Syracuse for the night. Ohio. Pennsylvania. New York. Oh my!
 |
| Who can pass up a picture of a high class establishment like Fat Nancy's? |
 |
| Lake Erie |
Sunday brought us to the peak of fall foliage. I've recently learned that Northeasterners call tourists, such as ourselves, leaf peepers. And we were indeed. I wish there was video of Mom and I pointing and the oohs and ahs about all the trees. It was hilarious. We have now learned that the height of fall foliage is around Tupper Lake, NY, in early October. We met a couple from Texas there, that live fairly close to me and have a nephew who works at Bell Helicopter, where Katy works. They were leaf peeping too. Crazy coincidence! Here are a few pictures, and they just don't do it justice. All the colors were breathtaking.
Monday morning I drove Mom to the airport, had my first team meeting of the season and got ready for my big combine day.
 |
| First team meeting of the season. Biggest recruiting class yet. |
I took a partial combine earlier this summer in Minnesota, and I was happy with those mid-summer training results. (Check out my post-combine blog
The Hay Is In The Barn and the combine video I put together is on the
Olympic Withdrawals post. If you don't know what the combine entails, check out the video.) I needed to score 600 out of 800 possible points to qualify for housing and sled allocation. I was crunching numbers from my sprint times the last few weeks before I left, and I figured I still needed to come up with 10 points somewhere. There are 400 points available in the sprints, which are my weakest category. I needed to run faster, simple as that.
Tuesday dawned cloudy and with patchy rain. Not the best conditions to sprint fast in, but I ran 0.3 seconds faster on my 45m sprint than I've ever ran in my life. If you don't know sprint times, that's a ridiculously good improvement. One of the guys was standing at the board and saw my times compared to the girls that are normally much faster than I am. As I walked up to look after my first sprint, he said, "Just keep walking. Don't look. I think the timing eyes broke." My first sprint is typically my best, so I was kind of bummed it probably wouldn't count. I ran the second one within 2 hundredths of my first sprint, which the timing eyes were not broken for. I just got much faster than I used to be. Needless to say, I was in shock and ecstatic. Just in those two sprints, I went from hoping to score 600 to having the potential to score 650. Brakeman were supposed to score 650 to get invited to push champs this year. I tied or beat my personal bests in the standing long jump, shot toss, power clean and squat. And I scored a 651! Not anywhere close to the leaders, but I was over the moon.
Friday marked my first push championships from the drivers bar. If you haven't heard, I'm transitioning to driving this season. I have lots of room to improve, but I was very happy with my results. I'd only pushed from the drivers bar a few days, so I was glad to make it in the sled all three pushes. I also competed as a brakeman right after the driver's push. Ended up where I thought I would, somewhere near the middle/bottom of the pack. My goal coming into this was not the get last in everything. Goal accomplished!
 |
| Driver's Push Championship Results |
 |
| Run 1 |
 |
| Run 2 |
If you haven't heard by now, USA track & field took over the bobsled team this year. Most people don't know we hosted the World Championships in Lake Placid last year and USA men won, but tons of people know LoLo Jones was trying out for the team this year, along with Olympic 4x100m world record holder and gold medalist Tianna Madison and 2008 heptathlon silver medalist Hyleas Fountain. If you haven't heard, I'm amazed. I had people tell me in the airport yesterday that LoLo made the team because I was wearing a USA bobsled shirt. That girl gets lots of press! It was fun being around so many recent Olympians. Hear are some pictures of them competing.
 |
| Hyleas Fountain |
 |
| LoLo Jones |
 |
| Tianna Madison |
Tons of people came out to watch our push champs, mostly for the Olympians. Let's me honest. Sineaid and I headed out Saturday to watch the men's brakeman push champs since they all came to watch us. It was overcast and chilly, so we were all wrapped up.
The next week brought Aunt Kay's wedding, so I flew home to Dallas. Such a fun weekend with Aunt Kay, Jeff and all that family! 3 days of wedding and birthday parties. I missed the opening day of the track, but this video explains it all.
Berit Tomten is also a new driver this season. We got the okay to slide on Tuesday if we could find a sled. Long story short, we headed to Start 3 on Thursday for our first runs of the season. Berit took the first 2 runs, and I broke for her. Easy breezy. I got the 3rd run, and things were going swimmingly until Curve 18. I was lulled into a false sense of security since everything went so well till then. I crashed Berit on her first ever run as a brakeman. No more crashes for us after that.
I also found out that due to funding cuts, I won't get to slide in Lake Placid again until after the New Year. I had driven my car out to have it with me all season, but since I don't get to go back, I drove it back home this week. Mom was sweet enough to fly out to Buffalo and drive back with me. The fall foliage was not as beautiful this trip, but we still had a marvelous time. Found this giant brass grapes on the back roads of Illinois. Had to stop and take a picture.
She dropped me off in Kansas City, and I flew out to Utah. I'm here in Park City for driving school this coming week and America's Cup the week after that. Then we're off to Canada for a month on tour. After that, who knows. I'll keep you in the loop once I know what's going on. Right now I'm focused on learning a new track and finding a brakeman for the season. Going on my first track walk here in Park City tomorrow, then Sunday I take my first trips from Curve 6. Living the dream!
