Chasing the Sunset

The title is a literal interpretation of what I’m doing at this exact moment. I’m sitting in seat 26G trying not to get peanut crumbs on my computer and watching the sunset through the window. This morning I was relaxing in bed with no need to get up on my day off. We had just driven 7 hrs from the Italian Alps to Igls, Austria yesterday so I was pretty tired. Landon (our team manager) knocked on my door around 9:30 for what I thought was a wake-up for breakfast alarm. Apparently he had more important news… The World Cup coaches had left him several messages during the night to have me call them. I talked to them around 9:45am and somehow within an hour, I had my plane ticket changed, my bags packed, my hotel bill paid and I was on my way to the Munich Airport for a 3pm international flight. I’m not sure of the entire story but they informed me that one of the world cup girls has decided not to race in Vancouver and asked if I could fill her spot. It’s a hell of a trip but I wouldn’t miss if for anything. I’m actually still in disbelief that I’m on a plane right now. This was suppose to be my relaxing day off in the Austrian sun… I guess now it’s a fly by the seat of my pants, 22hr travel day ☺ haha

In all seriousness, this is just amazing to me. I know there are always unplanned opportunities in sport because it happened to me last season with World Championships in Altenberg. It just all came about so fast that it still seems a bit surreal… someone please pinch me. I had butterflies in my stomach the entire 2hrs to the airport and I had to limit the amount of “oh my gosh’s” that actually came out of my mouth.

For the last two hours I’ve been studying the “point of view” video, which luckily I had saved on my computer. So I may not know exactly what to do in each curve yet but at least I know which way the turns go! Haha Wish me luck!

After all this writing, the sunset is only getting brighter… We’re definitely getting closer to home ☺