If you think you know what a boondoggle is, think again

The term ‘boondoggle’ was first introduced to me when I was 22 years old. I know, how did I make it so far in life? Then I lived some years and some trips that I thought were boondoggles.

Then I lived last weekend.

Now I know what a boondoggle is.

Webster defines it as “a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving graft.” There was no graft involved in my boondoggle, well, aside from the whole murder hotel thing.

My sister flew into Charlotte as planned, I picked her up and drove on to Augusta. In a downpour. The whole way. White knuckle, squinting through rain, sunglasses on, sunglasses off, trying to cut down glare, downpour.

We arrived at our motel, which we fondly nicknamed the murder hotel. I had told her to lower her expectations; that whatever she was picturing for our hotel, she should drop it by a factor of 10, because all hotels in the city were booked this weekend due to the race and this was the only one I could get.

We checked in, it was questionable. We walked past the laundry room and saw a barefoot man folding towels, “I think he only had 4 toes,” she whispered at me. Loudly. Did I mention every single room door was open to the breezeway? We walked into our room, although we could have walked into any room. The blankets were not a uniform color, there were a lot of stains on them.

Chelsea went into the bathroom while I did a slow circle of the room and started ranking which surfaces were safe to touch. She came out.

“We’re not –
This isn’t the place –
Don’t go in there –
We can’t –
No. Just no.”

I didn’t know what she was trying to say specifically, but I got the gist.

We were able to switch hotels after some very smooth talking with the front desk. Okay, actually it was my willingness to pay ANY price to get out of the murder hotel.

Then there was the whole hurricane thing.

(I have to put a disclaimer here: I know this storm was serious, I know people suffered much worse than we did. I am not trying to minimize that or make light of the damage that occurred. This is just our experience, in the small bubble of awareness we had for that day.)

We went to bed Thursday night listening to rain but thinking we’d wake and have an average day, as predicted, by the weather app. Around 3 a.m. the power started flickering, emergency alarms were going off, the roof of the hotel was flapping. There was no sleep happening. I ate a bagel. We talked about storms. We used what little battery we had left to obsessively check the weather. We were pretty much up.

It was awful. Waking up in a hotel with no power was eerie. We went to the lobby to get breakfast and felt like we were in the zombie apocalypse. The lobby was dark, people were huddled over screens eating dry cereal, plain bread, there was one thermos of decaf coffee…I didn’t know coffee could appear ominous but as we watched the last dregs drip into Chelsea’s styrofoam cup, desperate took on a new meaning.

The hotel was full of athletes. Everyone wanted to know if the race was happening but nobody actually knew anything – was the river flooded? Did the roads seem bad? Would Ironman give refunds? Turns out: yes, yes, and no not ever.

We went along the Riverwalk to the Marriott hotel which his where the race was being hosted.

The river was flooded. Definitely not having a swim in there, unless you want to be overtaken by an entire tree.

Every tree lining the main street of Augusta was tipped over like dominos. These are huge trees! It was so sad. Glass littered the sidewalk, storefronts were completely blown out, there was debris everywhere.

It felt like such a stupid thing to be wandering this town waiting to hear if a race was going to happen. Entry fees are exorbitant so to walk away was a guaranteed loss. But staying seemed irreverent in some way.

This picture is part of the run course…

The Marriott had generators and behold we found coffee! But behold! We had forgotten to bring money. We met a very nice couple from Canada that had come down to do the race. We talked to them for a while, and this is another tally mark for why I love triathlon. Meeting so many people from all over! And they offered to buy our coffee!

Then behold! We realized we could pay with our phones. This allowed us the mental catalyst we needed to make a plan. Clearly there was no power, there was no food, and there were zero Ironman employees to be found. We needed to gather our remaining battery, rebook some flights, and find some food.

Around 2:30 pm Ironman announced the race was cancelled because “all first responders were engaged in storm mitigation and unable to support the race.”

Sure. That’s why you’re cancelling, not because of the shattered earth surrounding us.

At this point I worried we wouldn’t be able to get out, there were trees down along major roads, flooding, and no gas available. Fortunately, we had a mostly full tank, enough granola bars to last a day or two, and at the very least, a bicycle…

This is the interstate, crews had cleared just enough of the left lane for traffic to squeeze through.

We made it back to my house and ended up having a delightful weekend at home with my sister all to ourselves! She attended a cheer game, walked our little town festival, bought some books, experienced our local sandwich shop, came to church, and got to swim at the Y with my bud, Kevin. You couldn’t ask for more!

There are still athletes stuck in Augusta, many flew or drove in on fumes and were not able to leave. It was alarming to read their posts on the race’s FB page, asking if anyone was nearby and could bring them food, or milk jugs filled with gas. I know a lot of people are suffering; homes were lost, roads wiped out, and lives destroyed. My experience with the hurricane pales in comparison to that.

To cap off the boondoggle, Chelsea had an ORDEAL getting home. About a year ago I nearly caused an emergency landing; she got to live the other side of that. A passenger had a medical emergency and the pilot dropped the plane out of the air a la Top Gun and landed them in Baton Rouge. They waited on the tarmac for a few hours because the plane needed to top off the fuel. And. Wait for it. The man who drove the fuel truck was at home, in bed, an hour away.

“Here, just hold this IV ’til we land then the paramedics will take over.”

She didn’t get home until after 2:30, with a time change.

This is why I avoid flying at all costs, folks. This right here.

I have KINETIC CUP NEWS to share that will wait until next week. Because if I type too many words, the little algorithm thing at the top of my wordpress page yells at me: Too many words! People will get bored and not read this! Far be it from me to argue with a computer.