Technically, these two days are rest days before the Run Laughlin Half Marathon on Saturday. However, travel days are so fun, I just had to share.
Leaving Southern California
We got on the road with the travel trailer about an hour later than planned after grabbing some necessary coffee for the road. We had some excitement on the 215 freeway when the Lamborghini and Ferrari clubs decided to hit the road with the rest of us regular folks. We all apparently drive far slower than they do and were getting in the way of their race track, otherwise known as the highway.
There were at least a dozen cars that whizzed by us, weaving in and out of traffic. However, there was a Highway Patrol car that happened to be on that same stretch of highway and spotted them. A while later a straggler zoomed past us and a couple of minutes later we passed it on the side of the highway after the Highway Patrol car spotted them and pulled them over.
Road trip snacks
It’s tradition when I travel with my sister to forego the healthy snacks and ensure we have plenty of Gluten Free Oreo cookies on hand for sustained roadtrip energy. If you haven’t tried Oreo’s on roadtrips, you are sorely missing out.
Other roadtrip snacks consisted of BBQ chips, gluten free peanut butter pretzel bites (which I believe I found at Target but can’t remember exactly), bananas and almonds for a healthy bent on snacking.
Iguana Bay Resorts
We arrived at the RV park around 4:00 P.M. but with the time change into Arizona from California it was an hour later and we still had daylight. The camping spaces were kind of tight to get into but luck would have it that our RV neighbor was a retired big rig truck driver. He helped navigate my sister right into the spot without any back and forth or need for her to get in and out of the truck to check her alignment.
Once in the spot she needed to hook up to the water, sewer and electrical and we had to stabilize the trailer. Unfortunately, a previous visitor must have broken their sewer connector fitting in the tube because ours wouldn’t fit. The owner of the park jumped right on it and his maintenance team cut out the broken piece and got the line hooked up within an hour. They were so accommodating and friendly at this park. I can see why people really want to stay here. I feel so fortunate that I was able to secure a space for us to rent for a short time when all of the other spaces are currently being rented by long term visitors.
Once we were hooked up and unpacked, we headed over to the Super Walmart to pick up some fresh vegetables and fruits for salads and breakfast. I’m not usually a big Walmart fan. I’d rather shop at Target for household necessities. However, this was one of the cleanest and nicest Walmart’s I’ve ever been in. And the people were really friendly and polite. We were having a good time just wandering around the grocery side of the store until we realized we actually were rather tired from all that driving, so we headed back to the campsite for dinner.
Although we were staying only steps away from the Colorado River, you would never have known it was so close. It’s not like the ocean that you can hear waves crashing on the shoreline. You could not see the river from the campsite through all of the tropical landscaping. However, you could hear the seabirds at different times of the day and night calling to each other. It was very soothing and relaxing.
Day before the race
Friday before the race I mostly took it easy and relaxed. My sister needed to work so we stayed at the campsite until it was time to pick up my bib in Laughlin. The one hour time difference between the two cities that are just across the river from each other is a challenge I wasn’t anticipating. I did not expect it to be so confusing when it came to calculating travel and arrival times for things we had to do, like show up on time for the race.
In order to keep us securely grounded in Pacific time we set the microwave clock to Nevada time so we could always easily refer to it when we needed to. Our phones and my Apple Watch all changed to Arizona’s time but would change again whenever we went to Laughlin. It didn’t help that our computers were slow to catch up with the time zone so we were always checking to see if the time we were looking at was actually correct for where we were located.
It took some focused thought to calculate my wake up time in order to allow me enough time to get ready and drive to the start line with enough time to warm up. I settled on a 4:30 A.M. wake up time in Arizona which was actually 3:30 A.M. in Nevada. The race was due to start at 7:00 A.M. and we would still need to make the 25 minute drive to the start line and give me enough time to warm up, use the bathroom and line up for the start.
Race bib pick up
We calculated the time for the bib pick up and still managed to get there a half an hour early. Walking into the casino I was immediately grateful that we were staying in the travel trailer and not a casino hotel. The cigarette smoke and stale smoke smell was overwhelming from the moment we opened the door. This was probably the fastest bib pick up I’ve ever done. We were in and out into the fresh air as soon as possible.
Before going to the casino I asked my sister if we should do a bit of gambling and maybe hit up some slot machines. We didn’t even consider pausing to gamble though because of the smoke stench.
After picking up the bib we decided to take a short drive to the start line at the school and drive some of the course that I’d be running the next day. It’s always nice when you can check out the course ahead of time by driving or running at least part of it.
Once we had the bib and drove part of the course there was really nothing more to do that day then to relax, stay off my feet and get a good night’s meal and sleep. The trailer bed was really comfortable and I had the best night’s sleep before a race that I’ve ever had. I would be going into the race rested and carb loaded on Oreo’s!