Sunday, September 30, 2012

Color Me Rad - Ellie, Kohlton and Christy

Saturday was a crazy, busy, fun and wonderful day. It seems like Ellie is bent of filling every minute of good weather with as much adventure as she can possibly stuff into it. Her friends and I are happy to hang on and join in the ride.
We began with the "Color Me Rad" run at the Chatfield Bontanic Arboretum.
There were about 3,000 runner, most of whom started out in white, fully anticipating the promise of streaks of color that would be splashed and splattered on them as they ran the course.

Getting there was a bit more stressful than I think any of us had anticipated. Though we left early, there was still a serious clog to the exit ramp on the highway. After taking 15 minutes to move less than 100 feet, the kids and I decided to jettison out of the car, run down the hill and over to the venue. It was a good thing that we did as Connie got the car finally in the parking lot just minutes before the start.
Although everyone was signed up for the same starting time, they ended up sending them in waves of 300. The wavys went on for hours as some people did the course several times.
The kids started out running, but soon were slowed to a walk due to the crowds on the course. But now matter, they were just in it for the fun and to benefit a good cause.


Even as I stood by the final color station, I was covered in fusha colored corn starch that was wafting through the air. In the fun at the end, we splashed more color on each other. Christy says that it was the most fun that she had had all year.

The flurry of activity made the kids silly.It was a lot of fun.



Ellie had a lot of color in her hair. I tried to catch the cloud as she flipped and swung her hair, but did not capture it.

They announcer kept the crowds lively from his perch on the top of a boom crane. He sent out a variety of goodies such as bandannas, color bomb packets and passes for next year. He simply loaded them up into an air cannon and set it off. The crowds cheered and wiggled with anticipation and joy.

It took 1.5 hours to get out of the parking lot. During that time we found Missa and James. (Missa is Christy's sister) We joined them for lunch at a local Mexican restuarant. The servers did not seem put off by our colorful show.

After showering, we packed up the van and went camping.



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