Today was a very long day after a very long day the before of driving. Ethan had a meet in Sioux Center Iowa. It took about 8 hours before you counted the various stops. We left around noon since once of the boys had to go to school for a work day he couldn’t skip. It was a long day of crossing states and zig zagging up to the town. We managed to find a room with two queen beds which meant one of the boys had to volunteer to sleep on the floor. Everyone went to bed fairly early.

I told the boys it wasn’t an official road trip unless you’re scrounging and getting by at some point. So we brought our homemade sandwiches using the camp leftovers from the various meals they’d had that week. For supper we ordered Casey’s pizza and picked it up long enough to use the bathroom, buy napkins, and get back into the car. So that was actually not too bad and it’s a break from the money spending on fast food. The next morning we ate from the hotel breakfast.

The races were divided into a Gold division and Black division. The Gold race has the top ten runners from each team and the Black division race had everybody else. It keeps the course from becoming too crowded. Ethan had a strategy to not use his watch and just try to keep up with the front place runners from his team. He ended up getting first on his team out of almost twenty runners. It was the fastest time and highest place he’s ever had so that was special to be able to see.