One of the boys had a meet in South Dakota over the weekend. I left early Friday morning and drove up to South Beloit to pick up my sister and niece. She’s homeschooling one of her daughters this year and the other three are back in regular school. I tried to get some of the other boys to come with me but they wanted to stay here at camp for the chicken fry.

The drive through Wisconsin is always nice. There are pine trees and hills and a stretch where you spend a longer time by a river. Somewhere once we’d been in Minnesota my sister asked about going to see my brother in northern Iowa. We called him to see what he was doing on Saturday. He was actually taking a trip to Illinois.

She’d wanted to go through Forest City and see my brother and sister-in-law’s new house. While we were there we could stop by the other places including the A&W and Brandon’s grave. I told her I was fine with that, but when my brother wasn’t going to be there on Saturday she thought maybe we could stop by on the way to Sioux Falls.

I said that wasn’t going to work because there wouldn’t be enough time. Our GPS had us arriving there around 7. That was later than I originally wanted to be getting there but I didn’t end up leaving at 5 like I planned. I told her it was going to take some time to park and actually find the team and that the meet itself would go by fast.

She thought we should get a hotel ahead of time and I didn’t want to do that. When she asked me why I said it was because I had commitment issues, and if plans changed then I didn’t want to be pegged into a hotel. We found a Super 8 nearby but when we went in side they said they were full. We got back on the highway and could see the meet from the road.

It was absolutely enormous. There were tents everywhere and people everywhere. The website said they have over 5,000 participants every year where they have a JV high school race for boys and girls, then varsity high school for boys and girls, then college women, then the college men ran at 9:10PM. They called the it Augustana Twilight Invitational.

She started looking up hotels online. There was one that said it had one room left. We pulled into that one and I went inside and asked for a room. They said they had a single queen bed suite. I said that would be perfect and it was. My sister and I shared the queen bed and my niece took the pull-out sofa. It was a very nice room.

We freshened up and got established and then it was time to go to the meet. By the time we were parked it was around 7:30. I texted Ethan to let him know we were there. He’d said there team did not have a tent but that they were right next to the University of Nebraska tent with the big red N. They were also right next to the big lot of buses.

It wasn’t hard to find him from there. He was sitting by himself which made me sad, but I was happy again when I was sitting beside him. I’d brought along two bags of snacks and drinks that he had asked about when I asked if he wanted me to bring anything with me. We got to see each other for a little bit before they had to go warm up.

I knew we wouldn’t see him then until after the meet. My sister, niece, and I found a spot by the race trail so we could watch a few of the other races. The high school girls were finishing up and the varsity boys race was crazy. I don’t know how they run so fast. I had taken some anxiety medicine earlier that day and took some more once we sat down.

After the varsity boys were finished running we decided to move to a different spot. That race definitely had the heaviest crowd but I wanted to go to somewhere with a little more space. I didn’t get any pictures from there, but it was a good place to stretch out and see the college girls run. Next was the college men. He did better this time and it felt alright.

After the meet we got to see him again. This time he was talking to another teammate which made me happy. There were more people congregating around the team camp this time including other parents. I’d already met the coach during the earlier time. After the race he wanted a picture of the team so he called them out to a field for pictures.

I started to go too but no other parents were going. So I watched and took pictures from far away. Sometime after the meet some of the boys wanted pictures and there was a group of freshman boys that Ethan was standing with. I didn’t know any of them, but I met one of the moms. It’s weird even as a parent when your kid’s teammates are different.

We talked a little bit longer but then they had to pack up. By then it was somewhere around 10’o clock. The team was not staying over night anywhere but was driving back to the campus that night. It was around a 3 1/2 hour drive for them one way. I forgot to ask what they did for supper but I remember the coach pointing to a cooler of sandwiches.

We hugged and said goodbye and I told him I loved him very much. We went back to the hotel and had a good night’s sleep. The next day we visited the Big Sioux River, visited a museum in Sioux Falls, and then stayed the night with my sister and family in Rochester. I miss him very much now but was thankful to have been able to do go and see it.