Keepin It Cajun: Shipping Off

Monday morning was my shot at redemption. I set my alarm for 5:10, knowing that the sun would be showing itself right at 5:50. After hitting snooze twice and slowly flowing into consciousness I finally gathered my wits at 5:20 realizing that I was in a race against the sun.

I hopped in the car, drove down to Tempe, parked at a hotel near the base of A-Mountain, and just started running. With my camera bag on my back, I was sprinting down Mill street in Tempe, until I arrived at one of the mountain entrances. As the sky started to illuminate, I knew that I was cutting it close and had to move quickly. So what would've been a nice hike up the mountain became an intense calf workout as I bolted for the top. When I arrived to the top, there were already some folks up there, to who I said (while out of breath), "I just made it." They laughed and agreed. I took out my camera and snapped my first shot of the day as the sun started to creep over the mountains on the horizon; I took out my phone and checked the time...it was 5:50 on the nose.

I stayed up there for a while to take a few more shots and enjoy the solitude of the breath-taking view. I then made my way back down, threw my bag in the car, and went out for a beautiful run around Tempe Town Lake. After the run, I went back to the hotel, where I met the girls for breakfast and checkout. We then went back down to SDS to complete our final volunteer assignment, post-race clean up and organizing. It wound up being just us and a handful of comumittee members, but we realized that with most other volunteers back at work on Monday, had we not signed up they would have been all alone. We cleaned out the visitors locker room (which had served as the committee's headquarters), filled up a few Uhauls, and bid farewell to Sun Devil Stadium for the last time. After stopping at a storage locker to drop some things off, we got to visit the PTF office, as we unloaded the rest of the race materials. There, we got tour of the office, got hooked up with some pretty sweet gear, and got to take some pictures.

After getting some ice cream from the office building, we all decided to get lunch together in Tempe. It was a nice punctuation to our time with the PTF to grab lunch with them, have some great conversations about Pat's Run and the Foundation itself, and then say our goodbyes. We went back to the hotel to grab a little R&R at the pool, and then went kayaking for an hour on Tempe Town Lake. With only a few hours left before the trip was over, we went back to the Gentrup residence one last time,; which gave us some much needed time to regroup, refine our packing (now that we got so much stuff from the PTF), shower (we stunk from the lake), and eat dinner.

We thanked our excellent hosts for such an awesome time in their home, packed the car, and hit the road for Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. We made it through security, took our seats on the plane and left AZ at 11:20pm. Traveling forward through time, we would catch our connecting flight in Charlotte and land in Norfolk at about 8:45am EST. We cut it a little close, but got back to campus with enough time for the girls to make it to their 9:30 classes just a tad behind schedule. It was a whirlwind of a travel experience, but just like that, after being on pause for 5 days, we hit the "play" button on our lives and got back to the daily grind. But don't be mistaken - just because we had to get back to our busy lives, we would never forget how they had just been changed by an experience over the last few days that took place all due to some silly 406 page book that I added to my syllabus at the last minute, just a short 8 months ago.

What a ride it was.