duct tape fixes (almost) everything

we raced another cross race last weekend. another morning getting up early to get the dounts that make getting up so early ok with the kids. plus, its sorta nice to come off a race and have a chocolate glazed donut and a beer. i’m just sayin’.

so were at the race. and we race. i went first. i just wasn’t feeling it. not sure exactly why although it could have something to do with the fact that the only time i seem to be actually riding my bike lately is when i have a number pinned to me and i have to ride it really fast. but then it was over and i had my husband take a picture of my awesomely muddy socks before he went to race and i went into the airstream to change.

i was changing and eating a chocolate covered donut and listening to the announcements and cowbells already clanging and i was worried that i was missing my husbands’ race but i couldn’t leave yet cause the helmet hair could not be salvaged and i was trying to decide if i should go with a hat or the faux hawk that the kids loved and actually didn’t look so bad.

i went with the hat but after seeing pictures of myself, wish i had gone with the faux hawk.

then i grabbed  beer and headed out to watch my husband race. i got a good cheer in for him as he went through the sandpit. he looked good. all nice and up front. then i cheered for other folks i knew and then went to chat with a friend while we waited for them all to come around again.

i started wondering where he was. cause he wasn’t coming around again. then i’d wonder how did so and so get in front of my husband? and this went on for four so and so’s before i realized something was wrong. i figured he had a mechanical.

i headed back to the airstream and was headed off by a friend who had to forewarn me that my husband had just been spotted walking his bike up a hill; something about being a certain shade of green and something about a collarbone.  what? again? i arrived to find him getting checked out by a doctor friend and finding out that not even one full lap into his second ‘cross race, that his season was over. and i felt super bad for him.

but then, my second thought was – who is driving the airstream home?  cause it sure as shit couldn’t be me. and i wondered if that made me a bad person.

                             

we got him a camp chair, i cleaned up his legs and we taped him up with duct tape and gave him a beer. i was super happy to have folks there who knew how to tape a guy up with duct tape. 

we stayed to watch the pro-races and the kids had a picnic lunch before being chased away by the bees and running back to the airstream for cover.

we watched during the men’s race as the guy who was racing for 10th place went down and broke his collarbone. he and my husband were among 2 of the four broken collarbones all day. i bet my husband was the only one with the snazzy, duct tape sling.

the kids were tired and it was finally time to go home. so after talking to umpteen people in the lot on the way back to the airstream and organizing who was actually going to drive it home, we were all settled in our seats and finally pulling out of our double parked parking spot.

and then a teammate came up to our window and said there was a whole bunch of brown stuff leaking from underneath the rv; and cause he can be a bit of a joker, i thought he was maybe joking that the pooper was leaking or something.

but then i saw the look on the planet bike folks’ faces and realized that something was indeed leaking and i really just hoped it wasn’t the pooper.

so we stopped. and got out and it smelled really bad, but it didn’t smell like poop so i was happy. sorta. the other part of me was thinking i put the whammy on things by writing this other rv story. cause it had been a really long time since we had been stranded and had a need to get under the airstream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the transmission hoses had blown and there was fluid all over the place. the planet bike folks gave us some towels and sympathy. friends and teammates stuck around to heckle and help. my husband, well prepared for such an event, had extra transmission fluid, hose clamps and all the other paraphernalia he needed to fix things. he even had a friend on hand with two good shoulders to do most of the fixin.

lulu held her nose and i took pictures to document the occasion. cause that’s what i like to do. tell stories. and it’s kinda fun when they just land in my lap. i’m just sorry this particular story involves the end to my husbands’ very short cross season.