remember that episode of The Today Show when Al Roker blew away?

Yesterday, our workout looked a little like that.
Since Anna and Jennie are at home, Audrey and I are the only ones left in Placid, and with Audrey babysitting 8-5 yesterday, today, and tomorrow, I'm bored out of my skull. Yesterday I spent the morning at Kyle's in the basement of the Olympic Complex for the first of many free weight sessions, had lunch with Ollie and saw him off, and then spent the afternoon all afternoon unpacking and putting up all my decorations in an effort to cover every inch of peeling yellow-flowered wallpaper that I could. Suffice it to say, I was blissfully unaware (due to lack of internet access in the house and me being to lazy to walk down to the internet cafe and spend more money) of the tornado warnings for the afternoon and evening.

Cut to 5:30, when Audrey gets home and we decide to bike down to Bear Cub for a nice long double pole. After stashing our bikes and backpacks at the Olympic Training Center, we head out. Interesting detail: one of my skis doesn't ratchet, and there is a huge chunk missing in the front wheel so it wanders all over the place. I'm getting new ones, ASAP. So, we get to the top of the dead end, just as dark clouds start gathering ominously in the sky. 2 minutes into the descent, and thunder starts rumbling in the distance. A few more minutes pass, and the lightning begins. A few more minutes, and we see a perfect strike shoot through the sky ahead of us. Okay, now we're pretty scared. Audrey takes out her phone and starts dialing our buddy Brad, who lives on the next road over, and as she's searching through her contacts, the sky opens up and it starts to pour. No answer, so she shouts a frantic message into the phone and we rush back to the OTC. The rain is surprisingly painful, and the winds pick up as we reach the bottom so that it is whipping horizontal curtains of precipitation at us. Soaked, only 50 minutes into our ski, we stumble into the parking lot, grab our stuff and are rescued by a sympathetic biathlon team who let us in, looking like wet rats at this point. Quick call to the Devlin's, and in no time Paige comes by in a huge pickup to pick us up, drive us home to change, and take us back to her house for a delicious dinner and a check of the rest of the week's weather forecast. It was a successful end to my first legit Placid adventure.

Pardon the drama, but it makes for a vivid retelling. And Mom, please let me stay here.

-M