Months ago, when we were looking at our summer softball schedule, we made the decision to turn 2 tournaments and 3 camps into one really long trip. And boy, what a trip it was! It all turned out great in the end, but there was this one moment....
Well, starting at the beginning, we had a couple of team practices in Spokane. The girls and I went up, and stayed overnight between the two practices.... although the second practice got rained out. So we came home and packed for our trip to the Portland area. (Photos from traveling there are in the previous post. I really should have taken photos of the back of the Suburban, packed. Because, wow. Eight suitcases, two bat bags, two coolers, two food boxes, 1 child-entertainment bag, 1 computer(s) bag, two sets of hang-ups, three pillows, two large blankets, two small blankets, three folding chairs, 19 DVD's (what-the-WHAT???)..... and assorted small loose stuff... it became a complicated puzzle to fit everything in! And that was BEFORE we did any shopping in the "big cities".
Yeah.Todd excels at packing talents, too.
Our first full day in Hillsboro, Oregon brought the college exposure camp for Alyssa. Darcie could have done it too, but she is still just an incoming sophomore, so we'll wait another year for her. Alyssa did well at the camp and did a super job during her all-star game that evening. She pitched ....
Played third base ....
(This next one is her crashing in to field a bunt. The batter missed the bunt, so there was no play, but Alys sure got some distance in towards home plate!)
She played first base ...
And since the light was dying, I didn't get any shots of her batting. But trust me when I tell you that her to-the-fence 2-RBI-double, was awesome! The pink shirt she wore was a color-coding thing for the college coaches.... colors of shirts indicated what year they were graduating.
The next day began the tournament with the entire team. It was pretty hot for Oregon, but the girls worked hard through it. The team did really well, overall. Their win-loss record for the two-day tournament was 6-2. Here's a quick run-through of just a few of my shots....
Darcie hit well. During an earlier tournament, she hurt her arm on a throw. Took her into the doctor, and found she has tendonitis in her right elbow. So now she wears a brace on that arm during softball -- that's the black band around her arm -- and needs to ice it often.
Darce also played catcher a lot. Throwing down to 2nd base...
This next one is hard to see, but it's Darcie fielding a bunt. Look hard to see both Darcie and Alyssa (who was playing 1st base) behind the hair of the 3rd base player.
Alys making an easy catch from the pitcher:
Alyssa batting:
Despite being such a tall girl, Alyssa can also bunt really well. The opposing team often sees her height and expects big deep hits. It's great when she surprises them by bunting herself on base and advancing the other runners:
When we made our travel plans, we had kind of expected to be done by mid-afternoon on Day 2 of this tournament. (I'll tell you why in a minute.) The team surprised us by playing FIVE games in one day, --talk about exhausting!-- and though they lost the first game, they won every game after that ..... and went on to win their bracket of their division in this tournament!!
Love to see my girls wearing their medals:
And Emma Jo was a real trooper who actually stayed awake all day long, and played well behind the dugouts!
Wow, that is SOME hair. She rebelled during this trip, and didn't want to wear pretties in her hair. So she looked pretty wild!
So, instead of finishing by mid-afternoon, our final game didn't even start until 7:00 pm. Done at 9:00 pm, and we were on the road by 9:30. Which was way later than we had intended.... because now we had to drive from Portland, Oregon to Provo, Utah .... OVERNIGHT.
Yes, really.
This was the point when we looked at each other and said, "What were we thinking???" Todd did most of the driving himself, only taking a couple of hours' break from it. Can I just say how interesting it is to try to find SOME place that's open in a tiny eastern Oregon town at about 3:00 in the morning? And how it's a bit strange to drive through some familiar southern Idaho towns when they still have everything closed up in the early-morning hours? And it's pretty cool to see how slowly dawn actually arrives -- with the glow on the horizon happening a long time before the sun finally peeks over the edge of the hills.
It's over 800 miles from Portland to Provo. In case you were wondering. 13 hours - ish. I'm not sure what we were thinking when we planned this out, but we did it! I can't believe Todd drove almost all of it himself. I'm so glad he stayed alert and driving while the rest of us dozed!
And the reason to be in Provo by that morning???
BYU Softball Camp. And more on that in Part Two.
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