Nicole and I have had a fairly busy 2019, having found ourselves in places like Central America, Africa, and Europe multiple times throughout the year. There were a couple months here and there where we didn't go on any big trips, and were in places like New York or Florida, (which as everyone knows) don't count. Anyway, this is one such trip that didn't count -- to the Lone Star State. My sister was competing in a Half-Ironman Triathlon which for some reason was taking place in Waco. The Waco Airport only flies to one other airport - Dallas, so rather than change planes and deal with DFW, we flew direct on SkyWest from LAX to Austin, roughly 90 mins drive away. We hadn't booked a hotel until we were basically on the ground in Austin because nothing looked great. Along with a major event comes quite high hotel pricing. We always figured we'd be driving in from 30 miles away, but ended up finding something last minute in Waco for about $100/nt, a vast improvement over the $350+ prices we were seeing elsewhere.
We set the alarm to make sure we didn't miss breakfast the following day, and then plotted out a few spots we might be able to intercept my sister while on the course. With road closures and a generally bad course map from the Ironman website itself, this was not always easy. Further complicating things was the fact that everyone in a helmet and Tri-gear looks exactly the same. By the time I realized she was coming, she was riding past me. There are several pictures of her back. We were able to see her about six times, however (some by accident), which I thought was pretty decent.
Before she transitioned to the running phase of the triathlon, Nicole and I drove just outside the city to the former Branch Davidian complex which famously burned down after a long standoff with federal agents. It seems like a silly thing to do as a tourist, but Waco isn't known for much else, though I have heard mention of a Dr Pepper Museum. Anyway the former site of the standoff is in a very rural area and we were a little surprised to see that the sect of "christianity" that the Branch Davidians subscribe to still exists. They have rebuilt a church and facility including an Audio Visual building where one can presumably learn their take on past events. The entrance to the whole thing was through a large gate. Neither Nicole or I liked the idea of being on the inside of the gate, so we elected to not leave the car. Another vehicle was slowly driving at the same time, and we tried to keep them from visually identifying us. It was kind of an unsettling environment, so we snapped a couple quick pics of a memorial and a big stone welcome sign and called it good enough. It looked as though the other car started following us, but we quickly slipped away.
Meanwhile, back on the triathlon course...
My sister had to do two running laps traversing the Brazos River a few times and doing all sorts of silly u-turns and roundabouts to reach 13.1 miles. It was more difficult to observe her during this phase since we decided to not deal with the car once we found a place to park it, but we still saw her twice. It was a decent day as far as weather was concerned, not too hot, but I was comfortable in my t-shirt and jeans. My sister was able to complete her triathlon before the cutoff, and we drove three or so hours to get to the Houston airport to drop off our rental car. We spent the next few days in Houston before heading off another "trip" to upstate New York for a wedding.
My sister had to do two running laps traversing the Brazos River a few times and doing all sorts of silly u-turns and roundabouts to reach 13.1 miles. It was more difficult to observe her during this phase since we decided to not deal with the car once we found a place to park it, but we still saw her twice. It was a decent day as far as weather was concerned, not too hot, but I was comfortable in my t-shirt and jeans. My sister was able to complete her triathlon before the cutoff, and we drove three or so hours to get to the Houston airport to drop off our rental car. We spent the next few days in Houston before heading off another "trip" to upstate New York for a wedding.
