Maybe it's because last night was a late one -- a five-hour Ragnar Relay volunteer shift that ended after 10:30 p.m. (Funny how this all turned out -- I went from almost captaining a team to volunteering on behalf of Derrick's team, a.k.a. Team I Need More Cowbell. I guess if I can't run, helping someone else is the next best thing, right?)
I worked Exchange 11, which was at Petaluma Junior High.
Somehow I roped Emily into giving up her Friday night to keep me company.
As each runner approached the exchange, I made sure their teammate was waiting in the chute for the hand-off. This was especially exciting when the teams were in costume.
But it was sad when the teams were unprepared -- there were a few runners who made it to the exchange before the rest of their team, so they had to wait around and lost time. (In the photo above, that's what the guy in the background sitting on the rock is doing. Poor guy.)
Meanwhile, Emily tracked the time that each runner came in and passed off the baton (or in this case, the official Ragnar slap bracelet) to a teammate. The timing sheet looked like this:
As you can see, it involved the extremely high-tech tools of pen, paper and watch.
Our exchange was fairly busy until about 7:30 or so, and then things slowed down. And the sun set. And it got cold. I went to the end of the street (wrapped in a Mexican blanket and three layers of clothing, plus a reflective vest) to direct any runners coming in, and for awhile, on the dark corner, it was just me, this sign ...
... and a creepy rustling sound that turned out to be a baby possum.
I tried hard not to think of serial killers, zombies and hitch-hiking ghosts.
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