Bay Teamers Hit The Road

SUMMARY: I cram my material goods into my minivan and various folks say farewell.

NOTE: I've been trying to post this to the Bay Team blog all day and it keeps timing out, so I'm posting it here instead.
I count 52 Bay Teamers who will be competing or attending the USDAA Cynosports Agility World Championships in Scottsdale, AZ this week. Some are leaving today, some (including me and my rideshare, Diana) heading out early Tuesday, still others leaving later on Tuesday and driving down leisurely over two days. Some of it depends on whether they entered the optional Time Gamble event on Wednesday; many of us didn't, so don't actually start competing until Thursday.

This will be an unusual trip for me because my right knee's medial and lateral menisci are torn, I'm in pain, and I'll probably have arthroscopic surgery sometime after I return. It will be hard--if not impossible--to run with my dogs, despite having worked hard to qualify Tika in everything again this year. Had I known that my knee would go out, I could've saved a ton on entry fees and classes! Why does no one fill me in on these things? The pathetic knee could make it--um--interesting getting around the huge site and competing. On the other hand, if I choose to use the really potent drugs in my suitcase, everything might just have the rosiest glow ever. Between the knee and the drugs, this all might give me a unique perspective on the whole event.

I've been staring at the "whittled down" stack of stuff that I need to fit into my car along with 5 decent-sized dogs and all of Diana's necessary stuff, too. Even with a car-top carrier (thanks, Arlene!), I don't know how this will all go. It's even more challenging now that I'm trying to also fit (because of my knee) a bicycle, a pair of crutches (which I hope I won't need), and a large cooler to hold plenty of ice for icing.

Plus there's the computer, the video camera, the nifty digital SLR camera (thanks, Erika!)...and Diana's computer, video camera, and regular camera... clothing changes for 6 days; the black pants in case I ever make it to a final round (extremely unlikely this year in particular) but otherwise will never wear; dogfood for all the dogs for 6 days; sheets for all the hotel beds; softcrates and shade fabric and clips; frisbees and riot tugs; running shoes; spare shoes; 6 days' supply of human-style bottled water and diet noncaffeine sodas; water bottles and buckets for the dogs; chairs for us; ... it just goes on and on and the car is bursting at its little welded seams. I even went so far as to remove all maps that I wouldn't be using on this specific trip and I got radical and vacuumed so that those little bits of gravel and twigs wouldn't take up perfectly viable molecules of packing space.

Well--here goes, anyway. If I get a chance, I'll try posting briefly Wednesday morning before we head out for the Westworld equestrian center.

Read Karey's and Tania's and other official USDAA reporters' USDAA blogs here: http://usdaa.com/news.cfm; they will also in theory post results as they're available.

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