This Elevator Is Making Me Dizzy - OR - Adventures in Hotel Travel

This is it.  This is the day. 

This is the day of the WARRIOR DASH!!!!  Let us rejoice and be glad it's finally here.  Let us also keep our thoughts from the idea of what lies ahead and remember that we signed up for this so we will do it, gosh darnit.  Because our stomachs have recently been filled with banana, bagel, and coffee, and the butterflies that take flight when we think about the Dash don't exactly sit well with all that food.

But hey, it was a continental breakfast....I had to take advantage of it!  Even if that did mean eating more sub-par food than I actually wanted to.  It's one of my weaknesses.  I have a soft spot for a good continental breakfast, and by "a good continental breakfast" I really mean, "any continental breakfast."

Is it the packaged muffins?  Maybe it's the 2 types of cereal they offer - bran flakes or corn flakes - that have probably been in those containers with the plastic scoops for at least a week.  Or maybe it's the packets of hot cocoa.  I love hot cocoa.  And coffee that tastes like it was brewed in a gas station.  I love that stuff.  (Really...ask my friends.  I really love gas station coffee.)

And how could I pass up the opportunity to sit awkwardly with other hotel guests while we all watch ZzzzzNN - I mean CNN - against our inclination?  I suggested changing to the Disney Channel, but no one jumped on that idea, which is strange since half the people eating looked to be under the age of twelve.  I couldn't have been the only person there wishing we could catch a rerun of Wizards of Waverly Place.  But, unfortunately, the little soccer team either didn't hear me, or they just didn't care, and shortly after making my suggestion my mom and I went back upstairs. 

My mom is here!  Did I tell you that??

She felt sad for me that I had to come on this trip on my own (my co-warrior, Lara, got sick, and I do hope she is feeling better!), so my mama decided pretty last minute to come with me.  It's been a long time since I've had hours of one-on-one time with my mom, and it was pretty great!  The drive up definitely passed more quickly than if I had been on my own, and it was really great to have someone to laugh with.

Which is a good thing.  Because from the warning from the clerk about the bed ("Now, you do realize there is just one bed, right?") which was the first clue that the "queen size" bed was not actually a queen, to the crazy blinking wrench on the thermostat ("Mom, I think that means the AC can't turn off!!"), to watching a fully grown woman walk around the hotel in boxers and a t-shirt ("Isn't it strange how in a hotel people do all the things they would NEVER do at home?  Like walk around a public place in their underwear?"), to the conversation with one of the soccer moms in the elevator ("Yeah, our girls are headed to a costumed soccer tournament.  They're the Zombie Grass-Fairies."), there's been no lack of laughable things. 

Side note:  I want to be on that soccer team.  They sound extremely cool.

And here's to hoping that I can laugh my way through the WARRIOR DASH!!!!  Because now, just thinking about it, those butterflies are taking flight again.  So Mom and I are going to hit the town for a bit, do some sight-seeing.  (It shouldn't take too long here...my view from the hotel window is the back of the hotel's facade.  And the freeway.  And some weeds next to the freeway.)  I promise I'll blog about the Dash.  If nothing else, you'll get to hear an awkward story of the day I decided to be a warrior.

Till then, think good thoughts and send some prayers up for me.  They will be most appreciated.