Xterra West Champs - a 3 part series - Travel

Week leading up to the race:
April had been a crazy month. It was busy busy with a trip to SF for the LUNA Summit, a ton of big meetings and presentations at work, a cat who is sick and isn’t getting better and just all kinds of craziness non-stop. I crashed into a No Trespassing sign and did a number on my left thumb and my neck and followed that up with a fun mountain bike race at Soaring Eagle Park two days later. I went to the PT during the week which helped with my neck and my thumb started to get better so that was good. We had our LUNA Fest on Tuesday, so I was out late but I managed to get all my workouts in. Late Wednesday night I packed my stuff for the trip, went to work Thursday morning for a few hours and then we were off.
Travel days:
Thursday we headed out a little before noon. We had arranged for someone to check on the cats while we were out but Pawpi was in such bad shape that last minute we decided to board her at the vets. After dropping her off, we headed south. The car was packed full and the kids did a good job on that first day. We stopped at a few McDonald’s for them to play in the Playlands and we made it to Boise, ID that first day. We woke up early and got a move on.
I was surprised at how beautiful the Nevada desert is, but also surprised by how much snow there was, too! The worst of it was from Wells to Las Vegas, which was 4+ hrs with no cell reception and no ability to surf the internet. I was going crazy, the kids were getting antsy and Eric had done a lot of driving – 18+ over two days. Eventually we got to the Excalibur hotel, dragged all the bikes and suitcases up the room and headed out to explore. I was supposed to get in a 30 minute run but I was too tired and I felt it wasn’t fair to the kids, so we went in search of fun stuff for them. Our first stop was M&M World – one of my all time favorite places, and then we stopped at the Hard Rock Café for dinner. After we walked up the Bellagio to see the fountain show, all the while feeling like terrible parents and the guys on the sidewalk tried to hand us stripper cards while we were walking with our kids. The fountain show was set to Celine Dion’s song from Titanic and as soon as it started Eric changed his mind about how cool the show can be. But the kids loved it, oohing and awing the whole time. Sirus, up on Eric’s shoulders even said “when I hear this song, I just have to stop and listen to it.” He is a funny little guy. Back at the hotel, we watched the 4-D SpongeBob movie and played a few games before heading up to our room for the night.