As
I mentioned in my previous post, I am interning with The Color Run this summer;
I’ll be
working as an onsite sponsorship coordinator. Basically I work with the vendors
and sponsors for that specific event and help out with putting together the
event and all that fun stuff. I’ll be travelling throughout the summer to work
at the events in different cities. I had my first race last weekend in Savanna,
Georgia, and I just wanted to share about it before I leave for another race tomorrow.
My race dates were from Thursday-Sunday, and it was
nonstop craziness! Normally I would stay at a hotel with the rest of the crew
and I would have a roommate. This race was unique because they rented a house
and cottage in the middle of the city for the weekend for us to stay in! I
really enjoyed it. The house and cottage were both gorgeous and located in the
cutest little neighborhood. The city of Savanna is an absolute dream. There’s so
much history, beautiful architecture, and gorgeous weather. The race was at
Forsyth Park, located in the historic district of Savanna. It’s a huge park
that kind of reminds me of Central Park in NYC.
Not a very good picture... the house we stayed at.
The historic district is gorgeous. During the weekend I think I saw about
8 weddings going on throughout the city.
My flight got in late on Thursday night, and on Friday
morning we had a team meeting and split up to head to the park to set up and to
Kohl’s for packet pick-up (where all the participants go to pick up their race
packets). It was a busy day of setting up the venue and working with vendors
and sponsors in preparation for the race the next day.
The gorgeous venue.
The next morning I woke up at 4AM. I repeat, 4AM. Woof.
We arrived super early to finish set up and get everything ready for the race
to start on time. Watching everyone have such a blast at the race and at the
concert after the race made all the hard work so worth it! I had to go on stage
and take some pictures, and it was so much fun being on stage and watching how
excited everyone was to see me up there! Hahaha totally kidding. But I decided
that I want to DJ the next race. I already know how to beat box so you could
say that I’m qualified.
After the race was over and all the takedown was
finished, we went back to the house where some of the guys were barbecuing.
After dinner we split up and some of the group went bar hopping and some girls
and I explored a bit of the city. It’s really interesting how there are
opportunities to be a missionary in situations like these. Just because I said
no thanks to a few glasses of wine and to not going bar hopping, people got
really curious and started asking me questions. It’s refreshing being one of
the only Mormons in a group of people- it reminds me of my Disney days.
Goofing off after a long day of working.
Here is where the story gets really good so PUT ON EVERY
SEATBELT YOU OWN PEOPLE.
I got to bed at about 12:30 Saturday night because I had
to do some work after we got back. I woke up at 3:45am the next morning to get
to the airport. My flight was at 6:30 but the girl I was taking with me to the
airport had a flight at 5:30. No biggie. I dropped her off, returned the rental
car, and headed up to check some bags. There was a HUGE line because there was
only one person doing all of baggage checking. I finally got through checking
my bag and went through security up to my gate. There were no employees at the
gate to be found, and we were supposed to be boarding fairly soon. All of a
sudden I see the guy who was checking bags come running up the stairs to board
everyone! I was worried he was gonna put on another hat and drive the plane
too. We had to wait longer because of unexpected maintenance
issues (don’t know if that’s comforting or terrifying). I was nervous because I
had an hour in between flights and this was really cutting it close.
When we landed in Houston I had ten minutes to spare. I was gonna make it! Then we heard an announcement: “Ladies
and gentlemen, although this is the most amazing invention in the world, it
seems we can’t get close enough to the gate door.” WUT. Fiiiinally after about
7 minutes we got outta there. My gate was across the airport so I ran onto a
train and ran to my gate. I turned the corner and saw that my gate door was
still open and thought YAS I did it!! And then they shut the gate. 30 yards
away. I was screaming like a crazy person, “KEEP THE GATE OPEN I’M COMING!!”
but it slammed shut. I ran over to the airport employee and frantically asked
her to open the gate and she said, “We called your name and you never came. We
can’t open the gate.” to which I replied that I was late because I was in the
SKY when they called my name. They looked at each other and said, “Oh… we
didn’t know that.”
So
if my other flight would have told them I was late they would have waited for
me… and I missed it by 3 seconds. Cool. So I burst into tears and started
bawling in the middle of the airport. Classy Jess, that’s me. I was so so so
tired and I felt sick and I just wanted to go hooome. I ended up having to wait
till 5:15 that evening for the next flight. During that time I managed to tell
the whole saga to random people that would speak a word to me. Or I would just
strike up conversation and insert the whole story in there. Those poor innocent
people.
I was on my connecting flight ready to go home. The plane
took off so I texted Trevor (who was picking me up in SLC) saying we were le
18 hours later and I made it off the plane and out of the
airport lookin real good. Even though Sunday was a nightmare, I had soo much
fun at my first and I can’t wait to go to Hershey, Pennsylvania tomorrow for
round 2!
No comments:
Post a Comment