I have been so gosh darn busy that I haven't been able to write about anything lately, so now that I accidentally napped too long today I guess I will do some late night blogging about my Vegas trip, while I drink some sleepy time tea.
November 2012, Rollercon talks started and a group of us decided we were going to make it happen this year.
Black Friday, the only shopping I did was from my computer at midnight, when I reserved my Rollercon 2013 VIP pass.
January 2013, travel plans began and I was completely overwhelmed by booking my very first flights.
February 2013, hotel room is booked and roomies are settled. Rollercon forum stalking commences for the next few months, trying to soak up as much advice as possible before we get there.
(During this time, I developed stomach issues, missed a lot of work and lost weight I wasn't even trying to lose. Planning and packing for this trip became even more difficult once I realized I would need to pack non-perishable gluten free food and a personal blender so I could have shakeology out there.)
The entire week before we flew out was a whirlwind of settling into our new house, buying groceries to take with me, laundry, packing and worrying about the little details of not only my first flight, but travelling so far from home with my stomach issues. Now, there are a lot of restaurants that offer gluten free options, and if this had been a regular vacation I would not have had to worry quite as much. Since we would be skating or doing off skates workouts up to 8 or 10 hours per day, I needed to make sure I had the ability to fuel my body without getting sick.
July 29th, 2013, I worked night shift, came home at 8:00am, finished packing and loaded up the car with Wrecksy to drive to Peoria airport. My bag was overweight, but I knew that when I left the house. There was really nothing I could do about it, I needed the food and blender so I figured I would just pay the extra fee. Luckily, I got a nice TSA agent and she let it slide with a warning that it wouldn't happen that way on the way home. We made it through security with no hitches, and then I got to sit in the airport for over an hour just waiting to get on the plane for the first time. I was not seated with any MissFits, but they were so awesome and came to check on me multiple times throughout the flight. We landed smoothly and safely, without any major anxiety on my part. This was the first time I had travelled so far west, and I couldn't get over the beauty of the mountains.
I could really talk for days about all of the things we experienced in Vegas, but I will just give a brief snapshot. The entire first day we were there, we grocery shopped for our hotel rooms, then we basically explored our hotel and the strip as a group, and got beers together to end the night. Wednesday morning, we woke up ready to skate! The next 5 days are a giant blur, but we skated, we took seminars, we did off skates workouts, we watched phenomenal derby on the main track, we met people, we waited in line, we split up, we met back up, and at night we swam, drank, went to dinner, checked out some of the social events that are a part of Rollercon. Wrecksy and I checked out the strip at night, ate some delicious food and experienced the best people watching ever. The Vegas strip at night is an interesting place, especially for 2 completely sober, judgy bitches. We had a blast!
For the most part, I didn't get too crazy there (with the exception of 1 whiskey night in the pool), we didn't gamble until the last night and it was only about $5, and I made good food choices 95% of the week we were there. That little 5% was a delicious Philly cheese steak with no bun, on French fries that I regretted for the next 36 hours. Woops! I may be an exception to the rule, but because of my food restrictions, I was very conscious of everything I ate and still managed to lose 1 pound in Vegas, even though I wasn't doing my T25 workouts.
On the last day at Rollercon, we had our co-ed challenge bout with some skaters from Decatur, Springfield and surrounding areas. We were the Lost Boys against Hooks Pirates, these are set up in advance, but rosters don't have to be turned in until right before the bout. We were going to be playing on the main track, right after an amazing MRDA (Men's roller derby) bout featuring some of the world's top men skaters, including Quadzilla. Here we are all swooning over Quadzilla's amazing skating, then we get geared up and start to warm up, only to see Quadzilla on the Hook's Pirates' bench putting a number on the back of a yellow shirt. Excuse me, what? This man is a beast, he has been coaching and playing all week, then finished an intense bout to just turn around and play again? Not only would I love to be able to skate more like him, I would love to have the drive that he has for this sport. As admirable and amazing as that all is, we were still shitting bricks thinking about playing against him. Holy shit. He played down by like 70% I would say, and still skated circles around us, or I should say over us since he is a beastly jumper. We all learned so much just by skating on the same track as him, yeah he handed our butts to us a few times, but every single time it was a learning experience. There was a couple times where I thought, "oh, that's how that works. I guess I could have done ___." Towards the end of the bout, I was booty blocking Quadzilla and I hear him bust out laughing and he said "Ass.Crack.Jack! Oh my gosh, that's not even fair to have on a shirt." Re-commence the swooning!
The experience of Rollercon was absolutely amazing. I gained so much knowledge and picked up some sweet stuff to bring back to our league. I met some cool people and I had a blast with my teammates!
I wish I could spew so much sunshine and glitter about our flight home, but alas I cannot. Now remember, we have just skated for 5 days straight, slept in hotel beds for 7 days and successfully wore ourselves out experiencing Vegas. By the time we got to the airport, we were all just so ready to go home. We made it through security with only some minor hiccups due to skate tools in our bags, and killed some time waiting to board. This time, we were all seated pretty close together, with Wrecksy in the same row as me. We got through all the pre-flight business, and the plane starts moving down the tarmac. We take off and to me, it sounded funny, but I am no expert as this is only my 2nd flight ever. About 20 minutes into the flight, I felt like we weren't ascending anymore, the seatbelt light was still on, and I thought I heard the engines decelerating. At this time, the pilot makes an announcement that we are indeed experiencing electrical problems, and only running on the backup sources, so we will be making an emergency landing back in Vegas. For the most part, the plane remained calm. There were a few passengers crying or clearly having some anxiety, but luckily for me I had Wrecksy by my side to keep me distracted and relaxed by joking around a little bit. They did warn us that emergency personnel and firetrucks would be meeting us upon landing, but we shouldn't be alarmed because it is standard procedure for this type of thing. As we were coming in for the landing, I was calm but my body was very tense. I felt like we were coming into the landing very fast, so I asked Wrecksy if it was typical, to which she reassured me that it was. We landed safely, and it even sounded like the flight attendants were pleasantly surprised. Overall, they handled it the best the could. They gave us complimentary drinks, and staged us to wait for another plane that we could switch to. They kept us informed and kept us moving to get us out of there as quickly as feasibly possible. Our 2nd flight home, went much smoother and we arrived just a little over 3 hours later than expected. When we landed in Peoria, Wrecksy said "Oh, good call on coming in hot on that emergency landing, we totally were." That little shyster.
The trip was an experience of a lifetime and this little blog only just brushed the tip of the iceberg. I learned and experienced things that I will never forget, some of which I will possibly never stop talking about. Will I fly again? Probably, just not in the near future. Will I go to Rollercon again? Absolutely. I feel like we planned ahead and conquered the week well, but we also learned some what to/not to do lessons as well.
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