All-in-all it was an OK weekend. We went to Orlando so Fern could skate at the 50th Anniversary National Championships. She was up against a lot of tough competition there and didn't do as well as she would have liked. She was 5th out of 5 for her technical program and third out of three for her rhythmic program.
Saturday night was the big team events, Bowie skated against a "local" team, a team from Tampa. I was surprised more teams didn't skate, but it is expensive to bring a large team down as we did.
Anyway, they had on-ice awards for the large groups at the end of the evening. I was a little nervous. At the local events you always can kinda get a feeling of how the teams do and which one might win the event. Saturday night, our kids skated well, even though Fern fell on a spin, and I just could not see the other team was better or worse. I'm not a judge, I still don't know all the criteria on which they are evaluated, but I could just not get the feeling they were better. So I was a bit nervous at awards time.
They announced the second place team, and it wasn't Bowie. I let out a loud "eeep" and tried to contain my excitement until they announced the first place team.
We got to Universal pretty early on Sunday, about 9:30 and went into Islands of Adventure. We headed towards the back of the park where we got on two rollercoasters right away. Not at the same time. Then we went round the park counter-clock-wise and rode more rides. I was impressed with the length of the rides, the duration was a lot longer than other rides at other parks. I was not impressed with the number of rides to go on. We'd ridden on everything that interested us but the Hulk ride by 2:00. At 2:30 we left so Fern could skate in her last event where I thought she did very well, didn't bobble, didn't fall, and got 5th out of seven. The competition was tough.
We went back to Universal to try to get on the Hulk. The waiting line had been 70 minutes before, now it was only 30. Fern and I got in line while Dan and Kevin waited elsewhere, But, alas, it was not to be. The impending storm pended and all outside rides were closed. When we got out of the waiting queue area it was pouring and I asked a drink vendor for a couple trash bags to use as rain coats. That kept us kinda dry on the way to the car. Kinda. My feet were drenched inside my shoes. Oh well.
Monday we flew home to more thunder storms and rain. Lovely.
I just checked the ISI website and The Bowie Ice Arena came in fifth overall based on points. The four teams ahead of us were all "local" teams—central Florida teams—with a lot more skaters so they were able to earn more points. Still, fifth is very good out of 43.
I'm glad to be home, even to a boat-load of email here at work to sort through. blah.
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