Trip To Norfolk

The girls used a blanket to stay warm.
Saturday dawned early in the YD household, thanks to a bicycle race that Dad was going to officiate in Norfolk. He invited the four oldest girls to tag along and they happily obliged.

The drive to Norfolk is about 115 miles - or about 2 hours and 15 minutes, according to Google Maps. But that is no longer the case, as we would find out. A couple things have changed since Dad first started making the drive north for bike races: a faster speed limit and a lot more two-lanes-in-each-direction roads.

The girls wondered, though, why we were "going so slow" when the speed limit dropped from 65 to 60 as we got closer to Fremont. They also thought it was funny that every little town we went through had a sign advertising the churches in it. Other notable things:

- Cows. Lots of them in feedlots near Norfolk.
- Single stop light towns.
- The number of roads that lead nowhere or stop.

A little less than two hours after pulling out of the driveway, we arrived at Northeast Community College, where the races were taking place. It was windy - very windy - and pretty cold. The nice thing was the sun was out, making it seem halfway decent.

The girls were originally going to help Dad with the officiating: counting laps, scoring the races, working the wheel pit, etc. But because of the less-than-desirable weather, the girls opted to watch a movie ("Curious George") with a couple young boys whose parents were also working the race.

However, for the last two races, the girls braved the chill to watch the riders fight the wind themselves (see photo above). Emily even helped ring the bell on the last lap. The highlight had to be, though, the two stops at McDonald's (once for lunch, the other on the return trip - for ice cream). They even asked Dad if they could attend the training race in Omaha this coming weekend.

Dad grinned, thinking of warmer days in California next month.