Well this weekend started off with a long road trip for the men's team. On Friday night we played in Mt Gambier, a hour plane ride away (or a 6-hour drive if you drive). Most of the team flies however a couple of the guys drive.
A couple years ago the plane that flies to Mt Gambier (not a jet but a prop plane) ended up with problems to one of the engines. The whole cabin filled up with black smoke and none of the guys thought they were going to make it. They didn't really know what was going on and said they could see the pilot get out the instruction manual, not helping their panic. Many of them said they thought that was going to be it. Well, they made it and I guess there wasn't something catastrophic wrong. Some of the guys though said they would never make the flight again, as you might imagine, and have decided to drive since. Katy and I hopped in with one of the guys that drive for a long drive there and back. We left Friday during the day, Katy had already let the school know before she got her 6-week contract that she would not be able to make it in that day and we left around 11:30. We stopped a couple times but the drive in all took about 6 hours. Have to say it wasn't too bad on the way there.
The game on the other hand was not good. We started off okay but ended up not playing a whole game. We gave up way too many easy lay-ups and our defence didn't look that great at times. Needless to say we ended up losing that one, which was frustrating because it was a game we probably should have won.
Aside from the game Mt Gambier is an interesting place. The stadium that we play at is called the ice house, and for very good reason. In each corner of the court they have heaters positioned, as the stadium is not heated. These heaters are small cylindrical tubes that shoot flames out. Its kind of weird as I have never seen them in another stadium before. Also, after the game when we were stretching down I could see the steam rising up off of me. Usually you only see that from football players in the winter, but not here.
Then it was the drive home. We quickly stopped at the post game function (after every game there is a post game function here where both teams get together in one room. The home team provides food for both teams to eat and the coaches from the two teams get up and say nice things about each other. Kind of different than back in the states). After we quickly stopped in we were on our way. We left about 11:30. On the way back we probably saw 30 kangaroos at various times, some right on the edge of the road. Good thing they didn't cross because just like a deer they can do some good damage to a car. It was also very foggy. We would go without fog for a mile or so then fog for a mile then without fog for a mile, then with fog. I wasn't driving one of the other guys, Gerrard (Gez), was and he did a good job of staying awake. I am not sure how he did it after being up all day and just having played a game. Somehow though he made it all the way home. Katy and I offered to drive but he said he was doing fine. Besides him, the other three of us (Katy, me and Gez's girlfriend) fell asleep.
Last year when Katy, Andrew and I made the same drive after the Mt Gambier game, so we could back in time to see my parents and Andrew fly out, we had to stop and take a power nap as we could not stay awake. It is not an easy drive to do. We ended up getting home around 5:30 and went right to bed.
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