Getting there

This is my last post, perhaps, in my series about Coach Smith's memorial service.  It is the least flattering for me personally, but I feel it needs to be recorded for the sake of historical accuracy.

I, like many others, was operating under the assumption that it was going to be a crowded event.  For over a week beforehand, we had heard about how there would be shuttles running for the Friday Center, and my boy Crabes had even speculated that there might be televised overflow space at Carmichael.

So the day of I started calling around to figure out how to get up there.  I figured carpooling was rational, because there would be no place to park.  I ended up riding with Dan, Susanna's dad, and his son Eli.

Now, Dan has been to the Dean Dome many times before, as compared to my one time, and had a favorite place to park.  Nonetheless, as we approached while heading around on the bypass south of town, there was traffic (on top of the memorial service, there was church traffic from St Thomas More), and I had the brilliant idea of parking at my mom's house, which, as the crow flies, is very close indeed to the Dean Dome.  From walking around back there with Mary, I remembered that there is a very fine trail system, which, I reasoned, would get us through to the Dean Dome very easily.  I convinced Dan that this was a fine idea.

However, neither Dan, nor Eli, nor I am a crow.  We parked, and then we set off to the Dean Dome.  I remembered that, at the end of the cul-de-sac through the woods up behind my mom's house, that there was a trail.  On closer inspection, it wasn't there.

Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. We had gotten to my mom's house at maybe 12;50, and doors were to open at 1 pm.  You must recall that we assumed it was going to be crowded and the we needed to be there to get good seats.  So I'm getting nervous, thinking "This is Dean Smith's memorial service.  It's a big deal.  And here I am messing up and making not just Dan but Eli late for this momentous, once in a lifetime event.  We're going to get horrible seats."

So, to make a long story short, we ended up cutting through somebody's back yard (and a deep pile of leaves) before we found the cul de sac that had the trail off it.  Then we had to cross a creek on some rocks and climb up a pretty steep embankment.  Oh, had I mentioned it was muddy because of all the recent snow and ice?  It was slippery, we got some mud on our jeans.

We finally made it there after navigating this truly very nice trail system that was not very linear at all.  And the punchline was...

It wasn't all that crowded. We got pretty awesome seats.  I have already told the rest.  Never again will Dan trust any great ideas that might come to me on the spur of the moment. And rightly so.