The Bike Race Parking Lot Blues

Too many cars in one tiny place

Ain't gonna fit in this little space

A rock or a hard place for me to choose

I got the bike race parking lot blues

-lyrics by me, obviously

In keeping with my look on the bright side of life* theme ...well, I just can't right this minute...

While we did not mind the twisty windy highways up to the venue, the half mile on the sandy yet rocky jeep track left us less than pleased...oh, please don't let us shred a tire because we only have run-flats.  And the lack of parking!  We parked where we though we would not be blocked but when we tried to leave there was a 20-long string of polaris-type vehicles.  "Oh, we're leaving right now," the last one in line said at 3:00.  tick.  tick.  tick.  Yeah, 20 minutes later is "right now"...  and my carefully planned time window compacts.  But thank my personal time planning goddessness because we still got to the chalet check-in office in time.

There was not even enough parking for the Saturday crowd, which seemed to be less than half of the Sunday crowd.  On Sunday they did "stack parking" like at the Hollywood Bowl.

So we vowed we would park on the highway.  Only when we got there they said, you have to park off the white line.  But there was no space off the white line, only bushes.  We drove back to a turnout and begged the parking man to put us in a mini space.

Then my favorite person of the weekend appeared.  The man with the shuttle van.  He saved my life and my sanity! I wish I knew his name...I did give him my last bottle of cold water on the last trip as a thank you.

We are looking forward to the last race of the season because it is in our own backyard, so to speak, and there is a gigantic open field for parking!

Now that I've got the gripes out of the way, I have to say the view was absolutely glorious!

Looking up the long hill at the end of the course.

I was distracted by pretty flowers.

Coach goes down the long hill.

Ernest rides up said hill at the end of his first lap.

Ernest rounding the ridiculously stupid u-turn at the beginning of the 3rd lap.

See ya.

Unfortunately, he did not finish the course...heat, altitude, dehydration.  Another bummer.

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