Day Two

July 14, 2004 - Trail E Pre-Run

On Wednesday, we took our time in the morning and got ready to go to the pre-run.  Maria decided to take the day off and stay at the hotel and do some paperwork.  I loaded the kids into the Jeep and we drove the 30-something miles north to the muster field.  We got there on time and found several hundred vehicles and many more people assembled to make the last test drive over the trails to be used in the event.

Muster

Chris and Carla ran through the list of things they needed to cover.  It was long and involved and the kids got restless.  It was also very hot so it was a real challenge to stay cool and comfortable while listening to the business.  They passed out Trail Guide magnets to put on the sides of our Jeeps.  Each person got two at the start of the process.  They soon discovered that they didn't have enough so started giving out just one of each.  Later I returned to my Jeep to find that one of my two had been repossessed.  At first I thought it was simple theft but I decided to ask Lyle who was sitting in his Jeep next to mine.  It turned out that the organizers had sent someone around to collect one magnet from each person that had two.  Boo!

The SoBe branding would be everywhere all week, but our first contact was with the SoBe Bus.  "Drain the Lizard"....  Ah, OK....

Panorama (large)

I abandoned any concerns I may have had about appearances and used my umbrella as a shade device and managed to keep myself and the kids out of the blazing sun.  We had already smeared generous amounts of sun screen.  But I somehow managed to leave the hotel with only one of the two coolers we usually carry, and didn't have very much in the way of liquids.  Harvin and Wayne L. very nicely donated water and Cokes and I stashed them in the cooler for later.  As it turned out, their generosity was very helpful.  It was so hot we were drinking almost constantly to stay hydrated.

Trail

We got on the trail at about 3:15pm.  The plan was to simply run the trail, make sure there were no new issues, and then after returning to the muster field, run the trail again.  But because of the late start, we only ran the trail once, and did not have time to run it again.  We spent some time at the only obstacle to get everyone past.  It was evident from this that Libertys and Grands were going to be our biggest challenge as they have clearance issues in this location.

 

Movie

When we were just about ready to get going, a sun shower came along to make our day complete.  It was nothing like the thunderstorms and flooding that had been predicted, and everyone took it in stride.

I was hoping to get a Trail I run done but we called it a day after one loop.  We drove back to the muster field and I talked with Todd for a few minutes, before leaving.

Epilogue

I drove back to the hotel and picked up Maria.  We went to dinner at a local Japanese Steak House.  It was the single greatest expense that we had the whole weekend, next to the hotel.  We all had nice meals and shared some really good sushi with the other people on our table.  We went away stuffed and happy.  It was quite late by then so we went back to the hotel and tried to get the kids into bed.  But they were so excited about the trip that they didn't get to bed until almost midnight.  Fortunately, we did not have an early start scheduled for Thursday so we got away with it.

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