The trip home

Yes, we've been home for a couple days, but after being gone for 2 weeks it takes some time to catch up! So here's the fun story.

We get up at 2am to drive from Placid to the airport in Albany. To stand in line waiting for the ticket counter to open. With all our bags.

The bags of just Brad and I:


Keslie taking advantage of the delay and the bags to chill out:


Finally, we all get on the first leg of our flight, and I'm out like a losing boxer. About halfway through I'm jolted awake in terror as the plane plummets for a moment, then jerks back up, and begins shaking uncontrollably from some insane turbulence. Holy $&*%! At about the same moment, about 16 people realized that about 16 of the US National skeleton sliders were on the same shaking plane...what a press release that would be! I'm just glad that everyone else admitted to being as scared as I was...

Fortunately, after another 45 gut wrenching, bag holding (yes, I get motion sick, ironic for the sports I do, no?) minutes, we found smooth air and then landed a few minutes later. Phew!

Waiting in the Baltimore airport for the next leg, which was delayed since someone really smart scheduled two departures from the same gate within 10 minutes of each other, and we were the second one:


I think I've mentioned this before, but traveling for skeleton is a pain in the a$$. We've got our runners, gear, clothes, and sled, so each person is overwhelmed with luggage. Each of these carts is one slider's luggage:


Notice Brad in the background loading our stuff into his truck too:


Anyway, suffice it to say that we're back in Park City, and are ready to start (already started sliding actually) the Utah track portion of Team Trials!