So we went down this hole and ran around seeing many a wondrous thing. No Cheshire cats or anything but we still had fun. Did I mention we were late?
I didn't plan this out well. I hear Groundhog Run and cave and I figure it can't be all that large an activity but I was very wrong. We left with just enough time to get there, we probably should have left about 2 hours before the race was to begin. By the time we get in there, get our packets and numbers to pin on our shirts, the first group had already left. Helen was pretty upset about the whole thing but I figured we could make the most of it and we started off on our own, which at least allowed us to talk as we walked and not feel bad about getting passed left and right by little old ladies.
The cave is humongous. Miles of air conditioned caverns and truck depots. Plenty of room for the race and then some. It was way below freezing outside, and we had to park about a quarter mile from the entrance. That means we jogged the first quarter mile to the entrance wearing shorts and t-shirts. I couldn't feel my legs by the time we got there. Luckily it was a nice steady 65 or so in the caves no matter where you went. By the time we finished we were getting passed by the groups doing the 10k, kinda bad considering they went twice as far in less than half the time but it's about us having fun together AND getting exercise to boot.
It was a good day, which reminds me, I need to find out when the next 5k is and get us committed. Without those commitments an extra couple pounds doesn't seem like that much. With the pounds, every step is a reminder that you are carrying extra weight you don't need and don't want. All in all we had a good time, and I'm sure we pigged out when we got back to my Mom's house, so we probably broke even for the days dieting.
Yup, still here. Not posting nearly enough but just like last time I intend to get caught completely up in about a week. Man the big freeze just swooped down on an Oklahoma that collectively responded by asking "Man, what's this white stuff?". If you think Kansas City is bad, the entire Tulsa area is worse. Drivers here will honk at you if you are driving 5 miles an hour over the speed limit on a solid sheet of ice when nobody is entirely sure where the road is. Throw in a healthy dose of power outages and you'll have an idea what we were dealing with for almost 10 days. The governor declared a state of emergency it was that bad.
I didn't teach for an entire week because school was canceled each day, but I did end up making about 2 trips a day up to the farm so that we could feed the goats and cows. That was a real pain because we essentially had to fill 55 gallon drums full of water, load them onto the back of a truck who's tailgate couldn't be raised and who's truck bed was a solid sheet of ice, drive the buckets of water out to the trough without having it fall off the truck, and then empty it into said trough AFTER breaking out the solid block of ice that the last batch of water had become! Needless to say, by the end of the week the animals were real excited to see me coming. Oh well, the adversity became an adventure and our little family got to spend a lot of unexpected time together, bouncing off each other in the Claremore house again.
Oh and not to be forgotten, the ice! Everything that couldn't move was covered in up to 2 solid inches of ice. Trees although beautiful looking would make a constant crackling noise as the branches struck each other followed by the intermittent popping of a branch just giving up the ghost and snapping off. Grass collected more ice than I would have thought an individual blade could. The air was sharp and clean, and the ground was smooth and hard... as my butt can attest. We have a ton more pictures of frozen things but you'll have to wait for a picture album or collage to see em. Check back soon for more posts. I mean it. Check back in like a few hours. Geesh!
P.S. I dominated that Monopoly game. Helen had me on the ropes with those darned railroads, but then through a series of ridiculously good rolls I turned my luck around and crushed her. Not that I'm gloating. *grin*
