LiveStrong Challenge - Day 1 (Friday the 12th)

Today was checkin day at the Austin Convention Center (ACC). I took a 1/2 day of vacation so I could drive down in the afternoon. I left about 3:45 and discovered why I don't normally drive this time of day, lots and lots and lots of traffic! It was stop and go traffic from 51st street (near the old airport) all the way downtown. I was not in any particular rush, so the heavy traffic was more annoying than inconvenient.


I used the parking voucher provided by the LAF to park in the ACC parking garage, I almost had to go to the roof to find an empty spot. Once parked, I proceeded across the street to the ACC. The LIVESTRONG Village was on the far side of the center. There was also a "Thomas the Train Engine" event occurring :-). There was a real train just outside the ACC, with rides every so often.


Once I made it over to the Village, I wandered around the various booths, eventually getting myself in line to pickup the registration packet. It was a fairly long line, but it moved along quite quickly, there were probably 25 workers processing the participants. I give the LAF great credit for setting up this up so well, you didn't ever feel they were taking longer than necessary. For each person who had a greater than $1,000 total donation amount, they rang a cowbell.


Once I had my packet, I went over to the "Remembrance/Survivor" wall where I added cards for brother and Mom. On the day of the ride, they had taken the wall out to Dripping Springs, many new cards had been added,


Near the wall, I ran into Henrike (her ride pictures) who I had recognized from her blog. I walked over and asked her if she was riding with Amanda. She looked a little confused, how would this random person she never met know that? I explained that Amanda and I had been trading email and had done a little ride out in Dripping Springs last month.


After that, I looked around a little more, and decided to head home, it was getting close to dinner time.