Sunny King Crit

Today was the Sunny King Crit.  It was supposed to be raining at 7am, clearing at 9 and mostly sunny and 10 and 11.  James and I got to Anniston (after riding through some rain) to find it very cloudy.  It just wasn't clearing up.  As a matter of fact, the clouds looked a lot like these...which were at my house when we got home.  Apparently, it rained at this race last year.  Clearly it was called Sunny King after a dealership and not the weather.  

But, alas, I am getting ahead of myself.  His race started without rain.  He looked really good and strong and even attacked here (as shown below) just at he passed with 1 lap to go.  His teammate, Phillip O'Donnell attacked and stayed out for many, many laps.  He eventually won.  James's goal was to stay in the main pack (with the 13- and 14-year olds).  He almost got away from them (them, the pack but them not including Phillip because he was long gone), but in the end stayed with them (the pack) and finished 3rd in his age group.    I was very proud of him.

My cousin Lisa's son was racing the next race with the older juniors.  I wanted to get some pictures so I walked to the other side of the course.  Next thing I know, one of the officials said, "Here it comes."  Oblivious, I was thinking "here what comes?"  Then I knew.  The absolute bottom fell out of the sky.  Immediately, I am running and my camera and trying to cover it with my body.  That was not a pretty picture.  Did I mention I was wearing flip flops and the water was flowing over my foot?  A very nice man and his wife let me stand under their tent during the worst of it.  The poor guys on the course.  (By the way, Lisa, I did get a couple of decent shots.)  The cousin's son had a great race.  Of course, I am thinking anyone that didn't crash had a great race.  He didn't crash and he finished near the front.  As I as standing under the tent I kept thinking about about poor James, who didn't have a way to get into the van.

By the time we hooked up, I was soaked, he was soaked and it was still raining.  We rushed to the van because one of us had a dry change of clothes.  While James was changing, I got in the front seat to talk to him for a minute.  As I got out, I told him to be sure to lock the van.   Maybe I would dry out some now that it had stopped raining.

Well, he locked it and even double checked it.  Later, when we were visiting with the  aforementioned cousin, I realized my van keys weren't in my pocket.  This is not a good thing.  I found a very, very nice Anniston policeman who called the PD a.k.a the Police Department (I have the lingo down now) and asked them to send someone.  (James pointed out to me a couple of times how embarrassing it was for your mom to look her keys in the van, especially as I stood there with the policeman.  I pointed out to him it really wasn't my fault - we could tell from where they were sitting, they fell out of my pocket.)

But, back to the story.  The PD (they also called the people PD) stood there with me for a long time.  He eventually said he needed to get back, but would check on me in a bit.  After a grand total of about 30 minutes he came back....with ice cream....to tell me someone was just minutes away.  Little did he know the new PD was bringing him the tool with some comment about how busy they were.  I think it may have had more to do with the fact that the bottom had just fallen out again.  Literally, as we got to the van from the awning we were hiding under, these huge drops started falling.  (You would think someone up there could hold on to that bottom better.)  So, the two of us are standing there in the downpour.  I am holding his almost totally eaten cup of ice cream and he's trying to break into my van.  He commented a couple of times about how hard it was for this van.  At one point I started to wonder why I am holding this couple since it now had about twice as much rain water as it did ice cream.

In the end, he was my hero, but he did get the van open.  I almost hugged his neck, but did I mention I was absolutely sopping wet?  I won't tell you about sitting in the van and taking off my shirt to put on my dry fleece.  Or, how frustrating it was to have an umbrella in sight during all this and not be able to get it.  Or, what I wanted to say to the guy at the Taco Bell drivethrough when he said, "You look like you got wet."  I was probably just on edge since we sat in line for 10 minutes actually at the order thingy waiting on him and his brilliant comments.

Fortunately, we made it back, but not after driving about 40 mph on the interstate past dozens of cars that stopped on the side of the road.  I was so glad to get home and get dry.  And, James, if you're reading this, I hope one day you lock your keys in your car so you understand that it's not just embarrassing when your mom does it :)