{"id":644,"date":"2008-09-01T21:52:19","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T02:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=644"},"modified":"2008-09-02T07:19:22","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T12:19:22","slug":"our-labor-day-getaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=644","title":{"rendered":"Our Labor Day getaway!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a surprise in Samford’s academic calendar, Brian had today off!\u00a0 It’s never been a school holiday, but this year his students swore there was no class, and Brian was excited to find they were right.\u00a0 There is always a big cycling race in Atlanta that he’s never been able to do… so within minutes, he was registered \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 His parents stayed with the kids, giving us a kid-free getaway!\u00a0 Sweet!<\/p>\n

On the trip over, we saw lots and lots of Louisiana cars heading to Atlanta, and our hotel had many LA cars in the parking lot.\u00a0 We stayed in a very nice Doubletree hotel (the bed was absolutely heavenly… like sleeping on a cloud!).\u00a0\u00a0 Last night we were busy picking up race numbers, driving the race course, and checking in, so it was a late night.\u00a0 Brian was up super early, for the 7:15am start.\u00a0 Thankfully he could ride the short distance to the start, so I stayed in the cozy bed for an extra hour or so, before heading out to the race course.<\/p>\n

There were 11 laps, and Brian made it an EXCITING RACE.\u00a0 He was in a break with 2 other riders, and they had 40 seconds to 1-minute gap.\u00a0 I was so excited!\u00a0 This was a HUGE race, with lots of top pros, and the payout was $20,000 over 35 places.\u00a0 I could hardly sit still in the 12 minutes between each 5-mile lap.\u00a0 The break did eventually get pulled back to the main field, unfortunately, but Brian did win $100 in a prime while they were out front.\u00a0 The sprint was downhill and crazy fast, with 100 riders jockeying for position, and spinning as fast as their legs could go… probably hitting 50-55mph into the finish.\u00a0 Brian ended up 41st.\u00a0 Still, it was so exciting and fun to see him be such a big part of the race.\u00a0 Here’s a link to a good picture<\/a> on Velonews.com, a well-known cycling news site.\u00a0 (Brian was hoping the caption would have been more telling, with something like, “A look at the day’s most promising break”, as what’s written sure doesn’t capture the excitement!).\u00a0 Brian’s written a detailed report<\/a> on his blog.<\/p>\n

We were able to go back to the room to shower and relax before checkout.\u00a0 Of course, then we had to make our obligatory Trader Joe’s<\/a> stop, since we were withint 50 miles of my favorite store \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Highlights in my shopping cart…<\/p>\n