the Longest Weekend

I realize that my blogs are mostly pictures. The truth of the matter is, I feel I do not write well and I'm afraid of looking like a complete ding dong.

However, this weekend brings me to say a few more words than I normally do. It was the John Hunter Regatta hosted by Georgia Tech. It's a regatta that gets us ready for SIRA and they are both in Oak Ridge, TN. We leave early Friday morning for a 4 1/2 hour drive that turned out to be almost 9 hours!

It all began when everyone got in traffic downtown ATL because of a fatal accident right before the toll booth. So instead of leaving at 10:30 it was 11:30. We get on the road and stop after an hour for lunch and gas. We try to leave the gas station and one of the vans won't start because the wheel was locked up and the key wouldn't turn. After sitting an hour and half we finally got a shoe and hit the key 3 times and what do you know? - the key finally decided to turn.

We get on the road again and not 5 minutes later I find myself jumping out of my skin. I usually drive in one of the back vans, but this weekend Doc (coach) and I had somethings to work out for the team. So I'm in the front van that tows the shells on the trailer. Chad the driver starts saying something (something I can't repeat) and is looking to the back of us. He says that he just saw a tractor trailer tip over. Doc immediately freaks out. We stop, I get a phone call confirming yes, one of our vans did get hit. So we run, I mean run to where they are, which is a good quarter of a mile behind. I would like to just make a note, that I have never seen Doc so concerned nor have I seen him move so fast!



So here's what happened.... It was raining and the back van was slowing down and the big truck behind it slammed on his brakes, hits the van and tips on it's side. Holding traffic up for miles and miles, close to 2 hours. The only real damage to the van was the window shattering. Amir, Lawson and Danica could have been seriously hurt. And this is what brings me to writing such a novel.

Remember when we stopped to get lunch? When we were loading back in vans, Teala had asked if I could switch her with someone else. Other side note, crew has a TON of drama! My first instinct was to switch Killer and Teala. Than without a second thought, I saw Jackie and knew I needed to switch her with Teala. I knew I had just killed two birds with one stone. Is everyone following me?

It didn't hit me until after the wreck how important that one little decision I made had been. See, if Jackie had stayed in that van that got hit, Danica would have been in the very back of the van lying down to stretch her back. But with Jackie gone she was able to get a seat to herself and saved from the glass shattering on her. How fortunate the truck driver swirved to miss the van like he did too. I'm not even going to say what could have happened if he hit the van head on. So... thank you Mr. Truck Driver!

And this was only Friday.

Saturday was a whole other story that just doesn't need to be told. Two words though... BAD day!