Travel Thoughts.

One of the hidden joys of triathlons is traveling to places you would not normally go to.  The impact on a city hosting a triathlon can be large.  Road closures, services are all taxed on the day of a race.  So needless to say hosting more than one major race a year is not the norm.  So if you are like me and you want to participate in more than 1 major race a year you gotta pack up and hit the road.  I have yet to fly to a race, something I am hoping to do in the next couple of years.  IM Canada in 2014???

These are a few observations about traveling to races. The first one is a general observation and the second 2 are specific to this trip.  The fourth one is race specific.

The first observation is the joy in discovering wonderful cities across the United States.  All my races have been US based thus far.  Not being much of a partier I had little interest in the city of New Orleans.  I went to the 70.3 race there and thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.  I did not take in much of the night life but the city is much more than just that.  The thing I loved about New Orleans is the pedestrian nature of the city.  People are walking everywhere.  I left the hotel at 4:00 am to get to the race and there were people out walking.  I assume that they were still enjoying the evening.

I do not think that Louisville Kentucky is on most peoples radar when it comes to summer vacations.   I found a city that is great to visit even if you are not into horses.  They do have lots of them.  Fourth street live is a vibrant downtown core.  You have to go to "The Toast" for breakfast,  the bread pudding pancakes are to die for!

Now Lawrence Kansas.  What a great place!  The city is beautiful.  Tree lined streets old homes and the campus of KU.  I am looking forward to seeing more of it.

Skipping to observation 4, there is no better way to get a sense of the topology of the race than on the drive into the area.  Right now I am getting a queasy feeling looking at all the hills LOL.

Now 2 specific observations regarding this trip.  The first part of the drive was north from Dallas along I35.  This is a stretch of road that I am very familiar with.  My company has an office in Oklahoma City and I have traveled there a dozen times over the last couple of years.  I was anticipating a relatively mindless first leg of the trip.  Just past Norman Ok is the town of Moore.  This is the town that was hit a couple of weeks ago by an F5 Tornado.  The stretch of highway from Norman to Oklahoma City is pretty Generic.  A lot of new development mostly stores and restaurants.  As rolled past Norman and entered Moore it was the usual grouping of stores; Super Target, Ulta cosmetics, Academy sports, Pet Smart etc.

The traffic then slowed to a crawl.  As you inch along you struck by this sudden swath of utter devastation.  The tornado destroyed everything in its path.   It almost seemed wrong to gawk at something that caused so much heartache in peoples lives.  It was just too hard not to look.  There were cars piled in ditches several deep.  Building made from steel and brick were leveled.  Impossible, even after seeing this to imagine the terror this caused.

My last observation is about my favorite part of the trip and it is this that has compelled me to post this.  It was the drive through Kansas, and mostly the 60 mile stretch from Wichita to Emporia.  What amazing scenery.  The 2 main things that struck me the most were first the unspoiled nature of the landscape.  Yes there are roads (the one I was on but not many others), cell towers and fences.  Other than those I could imagine the vista being exactly the same as the first settlers coming into the area.  A very moving image and thought.

The second was that you could see for miles.  While not being a perfectly flat prairie, you could still find high ground and see for miles.  There must be an aura of peacefulness in being able to see that far ahead.  It is what we all would like in our lives.   A clear path into our future.  I found myself really enjoying this part of the trip.  In fact I set the cruise control lower (apologies to all who had to pass me) relaxing and really enjoying this part of the trip.