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Published: June 18th 2007
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Untitled We finished up our adventure in
NY by going to visit Liz's parents in
Buffalo. They were really sweet, we had lunch there, swam in their pool, and generally had a relaxing day. We left Buffalo at about 6pm to drive to
McKean, PA. We drove the 2 hours...and arrived at the middle of small town America. As soon as we pulled into town, we stopped to fill up on gas. Lindsey and I looked at each other and both had the same thought. If we wanted to back out of this one and just keep going, that would be alright. We decided to stick it out and keep on schedule. We drove past the
McKean Tavern which was coined The Best Place in Town, I'm curious if it was named that because of the 12 pack of cans to go for $7.00. In any case we made our way to the
St. Xavier Parish Center. At first it seemed as though we were the only ones who weren't showing up in their pick-up truck. I think that everyone there was thinking, who are these city girls from Cape Cod?! We went inside and got our race packet so that
we could get ourselves ready for the
Moonshine Shuffle 5k that started at 9pm. At about 8:50 we walked to the starting point with the rest of the crowd. At exactly 9 the gun went off and Lindsey and I proceeded to run the race that brought us through a bunch of fields and smelled a lot like skunk and cigars. I ran the whole thing worried that I was about to be sprayed. We finished off the race with times of 25:40 (me) and 27:15 (Linds). Probably by the end of this adventure we're going to be lucky if we get below 30 minutes, we're tiring ourselves out! We went back to the center and ate the dinner that they provided us at about 9:45pm. It was boiled hotdogs with all the fixin's of sourkraut, onions, sloppy joe meat, mac 'n cheese, soda, cheesecake, pudding and popcorn. We thought that was an interesting choice of food for a running race. We sat down and the DJ started to play songs like Red Neck Woman, which if you had been there, you would know why this was hilarious. I don't think that my description of the place did it justice,
but I think that you can imagine why. Lindsey and I sang Red Neck Woman at the top of our lungs. So much so that the little boy, Ethan, across the table decided that he wanted to be friends with us. At about 10:15, Lindsey and I ran out of there to the DJ playing Don't Cha. We arrived in
Cleveland Heights at my friends Tammy and Joe Hans's house at about midnight. We stayed up and chatted for a while and finally made it to bed around 1:30. Our alarm was set for 6:50 so that we could make it to the 8am start of the
Willoughby 5k. 6:50am came VERY quickly. Lindsey and I crawled out of our mostly deflated air mattress and felt around blindly for our things. We finally made it out of the Hans's place at about 7:25. The drive to the race was 1/2 hour, so we basically made it to the race at start time. At the very beginning of the race, Terry Reagan (my aunt's father) was there directing the racers to the course. He has been helping to direct this race since it started years ago and I'm the first person
that he's ever known who has actually run it! We ran through a few neighborhoods and ended up at
Sunset Park which overlooks
Lake Erie. TJ Reagan was outside at his house jumping up and down cheering me on and Elaine Reagan was outside of her house as well. We finished up the race with times of 27:40 and 28:25. I got second in my age group and Lindsey got third! Lindsey stopped at the wrong spot to finish, and would have had a better time if the directions had been a bit more clear. We drove over to the Reagan's house where we showered and TJ made us a really amazing post-race breakfast. We sat outside on their patio which overlooks the lake and ate. It was beautiful! Even though we were crazy tired, we then moved on and met up with Tammy and Joe again, this time in downtown Cleveland at the
Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. I hadn't realized how much I had learned this past year about the music. I probably could have worked there . At about 4pm we started the drive out to
Chicago where I am writing this now from our sketchy
Travelodge which cost us an outrageous amount of money...Chicago is EXPENSIVE! Along the way, we stopped in
Avon, OH and ate at
Five Guys and kept going. We crossed into
Indiana and finally made it to Chicago at about 10pm. What we didn't know was that Indiana and Illinois does not yet have EZpass and are tearing up all of their highways...we got stuck in 10 miles (absolutely no exaggeration) of toll traffic. We made it to the Travelodge and unpacked our stuff. We took everything that was of any value with us because the hotel made us use a sketchy valet that cost $20. If we had known that we would have used that extra $20 to stay somewhere nicer where they have their own parking lots. When we got settled in our room, we called
Tanner Erickson who lives in Chicago to meet up with him and to get some ideas about what to do while we're in town. We're about to go hit up the city and have lots of things on the agenda. Until next time!
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kira
non-member comment
dude
listen, if you come near portland or, look me up. amy is coming july 4th if you want a reunion...have fuunnnn.