Moab Part Deux

So, anyhoo... carried home by alternating between the backs of Barry and Annie. You guys are life savers.
The night basically ended there until at about 2 a.m. we heard a horrendous noise coming from some poor unbelievably sick soul. I assumed that it had something to do with the tequila shots at the Rio, but came to find out later that morning that it was Terry sick from the salmon wrap he had enjoyed that evening at the brewery. Sorry again for that Terry; it sounded like you were dying. I think the sounds of the moaning and groaning in between actually puking that got to me the most.
Tim woke up at 4a.m. to get ready for race time!! Got all decked out and hit the road to be on the course by about 5:30a.m. It was supposed to be about a 92 miler and he had hoped to be home by approximately 4 that afternoon. So the rest of us decided to ride and enjoy the day and try not to think too much about the pain that the race boyz would be experiencing.
The day started pretty slow for those of us who had partied a little too heartily the nite before. I basically lounged around and bitched for a while about the blister I had acquired from dancing the night away in Birks w/o socks. Barry, Abbi, Julie, and Ryan ventured out to find some caffeine and food while Annie and I sat outside in the sun and tried to find a suitable trail for the whole group to enjoy.
Finally the food group returned and we had picked out a mild trail: Klondike Bluffs.
While they were out, I had talked to Julie and she'd decided to rent a bike for the day. So I'd made several calls to local shops and found the most economical/only available option and reserved it for her. Then, we find out that Abbi and Barry are not going to be riding with us and so Julie can use Abbi's bike. This creates a bit of an issue with trying to get out of the rental reservation; finally, it's all taken care of and we decide to leave for the trail head.
Meanwhile, Mandi's out on some marathonish run through a canyon and is supposed to meet up with us to ride that afternoon.
Annie and I basically waited around for everything to get taken care of and by the time everyone was ready, it was about 1:30. Yikes.
So, we rolled out to the trail and rode for a few hours. Poor Julie had never really ridden off road, let alone in Moab. She was a total trooper though and made it up whatever we threw at her. I kept telling her that we were almost to the top about every 5 minutes for encouragement. She rocked. We finished the ride and decided it was time to head home for showers and adult beverages.
We stopped on the way home to locate some beer and boy howdy, was that a challenge! We were looking for the liquor store so that we didn't have to buy 3.2 beer. We didn't find the liquor store but instead stumbled across a gas station that advertised beer in the window. We walked in and got sucked immediately towards the walk-in beer cooler. Hooray beer! Or at least that's what I thought when I saw the Red Stripe label staring me down. I figured that even though some other near-by options were 3.2, surely they wouldn't defile a Red stripe. I was wrong. We bought several different sixers of various libations and headed back to our condo.
The plan for the evening was to wait for the race guys to get home and then go to dinner. In the mean time we were going to snack, drink, and be merry. Well, I had decided to give Tim until 6ish before I started to worry. So as 6 o'clock passed, 7 & 8 o'clock, I slowly started to freak out. I knew that something was up and we decided to send out Dave to walk to course backwards and try to find him. Jamie was the other racer that day and had ridden about 40ish miles and called it a day; so he was back by about 2pm. Tim finally called my phone at about 9p.m. telling me that he was sorry that he wasn't home yet and he was ok but not anywhere near the end of the race. Then, I got another phone call at about 10 and he was pissed. He didn't know where he was and explained that after it had gotten dark it was really hard to see where the trail was considering it was on a big slickrock mesa. At this point I really was starting to worry. He tried to reassure me that he had everything he needed and would be fine, but I wasn't so sure. Everyone at the condo was also trying to tell me that Tim's a resourceful guy and he'd be fine, but I could tell they didn't quite believe what they were telling me. This is when the bag of Oreos came into play. I started demolishing them; it was a nice flavor compliment to the watered down Red Stripes I was pounding at this juncture. Basically, the rest of us who were waiting at the condo drank our weight in beer and margaritas and mowed through a few bags of chips with Mandi's tasty home-made salsa. I was frantic and finished off nearly the entire bag of cookies when Dave called. He informed us that he had been walking for a while and there was no sign of Tim. It was at this point that we called the race director who got ahold of Tim and tried to help walk him through getting back on the trail. He told us that it sounded like he had about 2+ hours left if he was where it sounded like he was.
I kept trying to call Tim and Dave to get any updates I could but had no luck. Finally at about a quarter to midnight I got ahold of Tim and before I even heard Tim's voice I heard the barking of Dave's dog!! Hooray beer! So, he was found and ended up finishing the race. Nice job Tim! That was his goal: to finish the race and he did. It turns out he took a wrong turn on Poison Spider which threw him for a loop. He survived and all is well.
The next day we were supposed to check out of our condos by 11a.m. Abbi made a few delicious quiches and somehow set off the smoke detectors. LOUD!!! But probably still not as obnoxious as the next door neighbor children hooting and hollering the whole weekend. So we checked out but didn't really want to return the the reality of Grand Lake so packed up and headed to the river. We all sat around and drank the remaining alcohol from the night before and had a gay old time. There was kite flying and dancing and shenanigans galore. All in all, a wonderful trip. On the way back we all stopped in Fruita for our favorite mexican restaurant and it was a great way to end a great weekend.
Until next time...