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Posted by Troy Tsuchiyama on Jul 22 2007 at 05:00PM PDT
"ASA 16U National Championships" July 29th to August 5th 2007


Disclaimer. Follow the adventures of SoCal Wicked through the eyes of Coach Mike. Views expressed here are those of Coach Mike only and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Wicked coach, player, or parent; and are not meant to intentionally upset, belittle, ridicule, make fun of, or in any way insult any other Wicked coach, player or parent, or opposing coach, player, or parent, or the SoCal ASA, ASA National, or the City Sioux Falls, or President Bush. This commentary is only intended to inform, entertain, and amuse the Wicked coaches, players, parents, and fans. Opposing coaches, players, parents, fans and eteamz browsers who read this commentary do so at their own risk, and are asked not to be offended by any unintended slights towards them or their team. Good Luck Oregon Silver Bullets. July 26th. Why do we all wait for the last minute to get ready? It is 9:00 p.m. and Reina and I are just starting to pack. No, put it this way, we are just starting to wash the dirty clothes from this weekend’s games so that we can pack. Earlier I tried to drop off some batting tees for Coach Dave to put in the equipment bag, but he yelled at me and said he had no room for them. So I dropped them off at Coach Troy’s house when he wasn’t home and couldn’t say no and took Reina to a last minute hitting lesson with Andy Trevino. Got to get my laptop charged and secured. Organize my stats spreadsheet. Print some resumes. Find the score book and lineup cards. Where is my catcher’s mitt? Why is Reina painting her toe nails when she should be packing? And how am I getting to the airport tomorrow? Got to go. P.S. First Pool Play Game is Monday, 6:00 p.m. July 30th vs. Houston Power. Second game will be on Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. against either Nevada Lightning or 91 Indiana. July 27th: To bed at 1:30 a.m. Up at 5:00 a.m. Off to South Dakota. Shower, shave, get dressed, finish packing, and take stuff to the car. Get Reina and Laura up. Should be plenty of time to make an 8:20 flight. Out of the house by 6:00 a.m. Cutting it close? Why is the freeway so crowded this early in the morning? Why is the car pool lane moving slower than the regular lanes? OK. It is 6:45 a.m. and that should be enough time to get through check in. Boy, that line is long. And dragging the hitting nets, my baggage, and my carry on through the maze is not fun. 7:30 a.m. and finally have my boarding passes. What is this? Plane boards at 7:40 a.m. OK, got to get through the metal detectors. Another line. 7:40 a.m. 7:50 a.m. 8:00 a.m. and through. Reina says she is hungry. There is a MacDonald’s up ahead. What is that I here? “Final Boarding for United Flight 270 to Denver.” Run Reina run. Run Mike run. See Mike and Reina run. Will they make it? There is the gate. And they are . . . . . . . safe, and on the plane. Now that we are the last ones on the plane there is of course no room for my carry on by my seat. The nice flight attendant puts it up front in first class. And look who is here. It is Nemesis Elite. Shawnee says hi. Reina says hi to Fili with some friendly banter. I fall asleep and arrive in Denver hungry. We have 30 minutes to get something to eat and get to Gate 89. Unfortunately we are at Gate 1 and have to walk about half a mile. Nemesis is on a later flight, but we have Mayhem with us now. The plane is tiny. A 40 passenger jet. Only 4 seats across. It is so small that we have to check in our larger carry ons. And the wind really blows the small planes around. Fortunately this is only about a 70 minute flight. Land, get a car, and off to the hotel. The Brimark hotel will not win any awards. But it is clean and the rooms are air conditioned. TV works. What else do you need? They do not have a gardener. As a matter of fact, they do not seem to have any water to water their grass. Or maybe grass in South Dakota is supposed to be brown. Reina and I are about 3 hours ahead of the pack. Everybody else flew into Omaha and has a long drive to Sioux Falls. Omaha saves about $100 per person on the flight. I, however, had 100,000 frequent flier miles to blow. While we wait I check out the softball fields. Dave calls and tells me to print some more team resumes. He has heard that there will be plenty of college coaches scouting the best 16U teams. I find the local Kinko’s and the local Subway. Back to the hotel to wait for the rest of the team. Time to enjoy the A.C. July 28th. Well, the big excitement of the day was that my battery charger on my laptop is not functioning. I only have 37 minutes of laptop time to tell a week and a half worth of story! Fortunately, Dell is going to overnight ship me a new battery charger. So fans don’t fret. You will get your Wicked updates After solving my laptop problem, we were able to concentrate on softball. We met in the lobby at 12:30 p.m. and went to the practice fields down the street. There we found Minor’s Gold finishing up their four hour practice. We exchanged some pleasant chit chat with some parents we new and got down to business. Lots of hitting off of coach Gus. I threw waffle balls. Temperature was in the low 90’s. Humidity high. Good workout weather. Crisis. Reina managed to break her new sports glasses that she has had for only two weeks. Back to the old glasses. Defensive drills. And then we were done. On the way back the way back to the Brimark we stopped at the local golf course and took pictures at their water fountain. Troy will post those later. At the hotel we changed and got ready to check in downtown for the tournament. Dressed up in our best Sunday uniforms, new baseball tops with the flashy red pants. Girls looked stunning. Coach Tom led the way, so to speak. He attempted to turn into a way one street by the hotel twice the wrong way. But we got there and got registered. Got our souvenir t-shirts and gate passes. Now we are set. Dinner at the Timber Lodge Steakhouse. Next practice tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. Hope to beat Minor’s Gold to the fields. Most fun of the day, calling Gus at 9:00 a.m. to tell him about practice not knowing he had gotten in at 4:00 a.m. Teach him to take the late flight. July 29th. 1:00 a.m. After Coach Dave knocks on the Coach Tom's door and asks for 3 beers, Coach Tom puts a "Bar Closed" sign on the door. Practice at 8:00 a.m. Done at 10:00 a.m. Coaches meeting at 11:00 a.m. I don't go, and it turns out they had prime rib. Oh well. Go out to lunch with family and relax. Get to opening day at 3:45 p.m. Unfortunately it does not start until 5:00. We kill time talking to other teams. Reina gets 23 trading pins. Ceremony is nice. Held at local minor league stadium. We all skip the BBQ and go to Fudruckers instead. Girls then put together gift bags. Now going to watch "Scary Movie." Battery low, got to go. July 30th. Doing this report from the Sioux Falls Kinko’s while I wait for Dell to send me my new battery charger for the laptop. I am up at 7:00 a.m. while the rest of the family sleeps in. Off to Burger King for breakfast and work on some old stats I have not compiled. Then off to local sporting goods to buy a new tee because one of ours broke. Found a cool "stadium seat" in red for sitting on the bleachers. Then off to the fields to watch some softball with Coach Tom and Dave. Sorcerers win by one on walk off home run. Minors Gold wins by one coming from three runs behind. OC Batbusters Meyers and Victory blow out their opponents. Dave spends some time on the phone setting team priorities. No, you can not go ride go carts. No, you can not play miniature golf. Stay out of the sun. We are here to play softball!!!!!!!!! Finally, 3:45 p.m. and off to the fields. Game time is 6:00 p.m. Get together with tournament staff for official team picture. Then to the back of Field D to warm up. We are warming up in a sliver of field between the portable fences and the permanent fences. Portable fences are set up at 200 feet between real fences that are either 240 feet or 275 feet depending on the field. The 200 foot fence seems like a short porch. There are nine fields all in play. Lots of softball happening. Lots of college coaches scouting. I hand out 11-15 team resumes before we even start to play. Another 12-15 while we are playing. Game time. We win the coin toss and are home team. After a scoreless first Houston Power draws first blood and goes up 1-0. In the bottom of the second Reina leads off with a Double that she dedicates to her grandmother who flew in from Hawaii to watch the games. She scores on a two base shot by Megan off the glove of the left field at the fence. Megan scores on Patty's single. Wicked up 2-1. In the bottom of the third Katie starts us off with a single. Julia then hits a line drive home run that hits the outer fence at 240 feet. Consecutive singles by Jocelin and Megan are followed by a two run double by Alexa. Wicked up 5-1. Houston comes back with a two run, nine iron home run in the fourth and then another two runs in the top of the fifth to tie the game 5-5. Reina then leads off the bottom of the fifth with an infield single. Her high school coach who has driven in from Minnesota on his motorcycle to watch is amazed by her speed (for those of you who do not know Reina, this speed thing is a joke). Brooke comes in to run from Reina and Jocelin puts down a nice sacrifice bunt, her second of the game. Megan drives her in with a single. Alexa gets on with a fielding error. Then they are both driven in with a double by Patty. Katie drives her in with a single, her third hit of the game. Wicked up 9-5. Houston makes in interesting leading off the top of the sixth with three consecutive hits. Wicked up 9-6 with runners at first and third and no outs. Tying run at the plate. Alexa bears down and strikes out the next batter. Then there is a line shot up the middle. Julia at second makes a diving backhand stab, pops up and doubles the girl off first. Game over!!!!!!! Wicked wins. Dinner on our own. Reina is exhausted. Burger King and to bed. Curfew was 10:00 p.m. but she does not last that long. Laura and I are going to the movies. While we wait, I do this entry. Game time tomorrow is 10:00 a.m. We are all so excited that no one bothers to find out who won the Nevada Lightning vs. 91 Indiana contest. Doesn't matter. We will be ready. Put Reina to bed and Laura and I go off to the Movies. We see "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" starring Adam Sandler, and special guest star David Limon Jr. as the kid in the fight scene. I am not quite sure but I think Dave Limon Sr. has a roll in one of the dance scenes at Butterfly's birthday party. July 31st. I am up at 6:30 a.m. and off to get some Breakfast at Burger King for Reina and me. Back to the hotel and get Reina up and ready. Trying to maximize her sleep. Down to the car at 8:00 and off to the field. We will be playing Indiana Shockwave Red who beat Nevada Lightning 5-4 the night before. StudentSports.com has picked Shockwave as one of the favorites. Paige has drawn the pitching assignment for the day, with Jac as her battery mate. There are about fifteen college coaches watching in the stands. We are visitors and bat first. No blood drawn in the first inning. In the second Wicked strikes first. Megan, Katrina, and Patty all have singles. Jac then lays down a squeeze bunt and Megan is safe at home when a hurried flip to the catcher is bobbled. Di then drives in another run on a fielder' choice. Katie follows that with a double to knock in the third run of the inning. Jocelin pushes across two more with a shot off the left fielder's glove at the fence. Wicked leads 5-0. Paige pitches well, keeping the Shockwave off balance with a mix of breaking balls and assorted junk. In the forth Di starts it off with an infield single. Katie then hits her second double of the day over the right fielders head. Jocelin promptly drives in two more runs with a timely single and Wicked carries a 7-0 lead into the 5th inning. The Shockewave finally get on the scoreboard in the fifth to cut the lead to 7-1, but Wicked continued the assault in the 6th. Jocelin singles to left driving in her 5th run of the day, and then is driven in by Julia's single to right. Paige shuts them down in the sixth. Game over by the mercy rule. Wicked wins 9-1 and wraps up the first seed in the pool. Coach Dave gathered the team up afterwards for our post game talk. He is especially proud of our showing because it has been a total team effort. Good team defense and good team offense. The bottom of the lineup has been very productive. Pitching, as always, has been great. Now we are set to go into the elimination portion of the tournament. Coach Dave goes to the tournament headquarters for our draw. He pulls a 2:00 p.m. game vs. a yet to be named third or fourth seed on Wednesday. He reminds the team that there will be no water park, no go cart racing, and no miniature golf. The movies will be OK. Stay out of the sun. The girls go off to the hotel to rest, and the coaches go to watch games. Lunch at the park. The BBQ'd corn on the cob was really good, especially with garlic salt and chili powder. Not so sure the foot long corn dogs were worth five dollars. So far, so good. Lots of positive comments about our play from coaches and spectators. However, the real tournament begins tomorrow. Think positive. Play Wicked. August 1. Ah, a day to be able to sleep in. Ring, ring, goes the cell phone at 8:00 a.m. It is the Dell Computer repair man to fix my laptop. I meet him in the lobby with the faulty computer. He unscrews about 30 little screws and takes everything apart. It looks as if Reina must have spilled a bowl of chili on it at one time, there is so much crud inside. He changes the casing and replaces the mother board. He says that a lot of battery charging problems are related to the mother board (always blame it on your mother, I say). It takes 30 minutes to swap everything out. He plugs in the new charger, inserts the new battery, and presto, it is working, maybe. We go to reboot, and it keeps saying “resuming Windows.” Whoops. It still thinks the old mother board is there, and it can’t find it. “Well, this is a software problem,” he says, “and I only handle hardware problems.” So he suggests I call the Dell support line again. I go back up to the room to use my work cell phone and save minutes. I then spend half an hour with a Dell technician unsuccessfully trying to get the laptop to recognize the new mother board. We give up and decide to reinstall the operating system. He will have to ship me a CD. Tune in tomorrow for an update on my laptop. Wicked news will have to be sent from our friendly Kinko’s again. The family goes out to breakfast at 11:00 a.m. Go to The Original Pancake House. I have the Irish Omelet with a side order of Berry Berry Pancakes. Meet at the fields at 12:00 noon for warm ups for a 2:00 p.m. game vs. the All American Dream from Missouri. Temperature in the low 90’s. Humidity in the low 90’s, or so it feels. Give the girls plenty of fluids. Take batting practice in the shade of a tree. Important game. First game of double elimination. Coaches are uptight. Girls seem relaxed. Game time. Alexa gets the start. We are visitors and hit first. Ariel starts us up with a triple down the first base line and scores on Julia’s sacrifice fly. Wicked 1-0. Dream comes back with a run on an infield error, a walk, and two singles. Bases loaded, one out, score tied 1-1. Alexa is having problems gripping the ball in the humidity. She helps herself out by starting up a 1-2-3 double play to end the inning. Dream is not through. In the second they come up with two runs on two doubles and a single. Wicked down 1-3. Things are getting tense. In the third Katie leads off with a double to the gap in right. Julia singles to put runners on first and third. Reina grounds out, but advances both runners to make it 2-3. Megan ties the game with a single and then scores on Jocelin’s double over the center fielder’s head. Wicked takes the lead 4-3. The fourth and fifth innings are scoreless. In the fifth, with Alexa on the mound the game is halted for thunder (not lightning). No other game is halted. After a ten minute delay, and much complaining from both benches, an ASA official orders the Blue back on the field. Katrina gets the ball rolling in the sixth with a single to left, and then steals second. Katie hits a squibber back to the mound, but the pitcher makes an off balanced throw over the first baseman’s head into right. Katrina scores and Katie rounds second and heads towards third. The right fielder throws a missile into left field and Katie trots home. 6-3. Ariel promptly hits her second triple of the game over the right fielder’s head and scores on a passed ball. 7-3. Julia walks. Then Coach Dave taunts Reina. “Reina, your grandmother didn’t come all the way from Hawaii to see you fly out. Hit the ball hard.” So on the first pitch she hits a double to the left field gap and scores Julia from first. 8-3. Megan singles and pushes Brooke, who is running for Reina, to third. Jocelin then hits her second double of the day. Wicked leads 9-3 after six. Wicked keeps on rolling in the top of the seventh. Jac pitch hits for Patty and hits a line drive over third for a single. Katrina, who doubled in the forth, hits a shot that is bobbled and thrown away by the third baseman. Diane pitch hitting for Katie hits a run scoring single to left. 10-3. Ariel walks and that brings up Brooke, who is hitting clean up for Reina, with bases loaded and two outs. I call her mom, Lisa, who has already called me 15 times for updates on the game. I give her the play by play. Brook works the count to 3 and 2. Then she hits a line shot over short to drive in two more. 12-3. I hang up on Lisa. Megan finishes the scoring with a double to make it 13-3. Paige closes the door by pitching a scoreless seventh. Wicked pounds out 15 hits including 6 doubles and 2 triples. All three pitch hitters got hits coming off the bench. All twelve players with an at bat are now hitting over .300 for the tournament. We all go back to the hotel to take a shower before dinner. Then off to the Coyote Steakhouse buffet. Watched some softball after dinner. Lightning halts the games at 8:15 p.m. Then off to Kinko’s to file this report. Next game tomorrow, 6:00 p.m. vs. San Diego Renegades. Tough match up. August 2. I made a mistake yesterday, and am forced to issue a retraction. I investigated Coach Dave's dancing skills, and he was definitely not a dancer in the "Chuck and Larry" movie that Little David appeared in. According to my resources Coach Dave has never appeared in any movie, or been a professional dancer. My unintentional mistake. Another sleep in day. Coach Dave has called a practice at 10:00 a.m. Although this initially was not popular with the girls, it was a great idea. Forces the girls to go to bed early and get up at a reasonable time. Never know when we will have to play early (make up games started at 7:00 a.m. this morning for some teams). Also, boredom can be a problem waiting around for your game. So the girls were out in great spirits at 10:00 a.m. and had a great practice. Very loose and relaxed. Mostly hitting. Fun watching Coach Gus pitch hardballs to the girls, especially Julia (who plunked him yesterday). Bring you safety net next year Gus. Learned something interesting about rental cars and modern technology. Saw all these buttons on the rear view mirror and wondered what they were all about. While driving to breakfast I saw a light that said "passenger air bag off." Then I saw an "On" button next to that light so I reached up and pushed it to turn on the airbags. Well a voice comes out of nowhere and tells me "Welcome to OnStar." Whoops. So I see a red button next to that button, so I push that to turn off the voice (somehow, that seem to make sense at the moment). Then there was a ringing sound like a telephone and a voice comes on and says "OnStar emergency, how can I help you?" I apologize and ask how to turn this thing off. How embarrassing. Hope no one hears that story. Coach Dave has said I should not include anything about my laptop in this blog, only softball. But this is my blog, so tough. I know all my readers want to know whether or not I am spending $12 an hour at Kinko's or using my laptop to make this report. I know that many of the parents on the team are concerned about the production of this blog. Some have offered me suggestions on how to get that "resuming Windows" message to go away. Billy told me that if the F2 key, and the F8 key, and the F12 keys are not resolving the issue, that I should try the FU key instead. However, I cold not find that key. After practice I went to the front desk and my newest package from Dell had arrived. It contained three CD's to reinstall the operating system. But when I went back to the room Laura told me I had to go to the Laundromat to wash Reina's uniform. So I took my laptop and my cell phone with me. There I spent an hour on the phone with Eddie from Dell doing laundry and reinstalling the operating system and a bunch of drivers. Nothing like multi-tasking. Laptop now works, however, there are a few drivers, and programs, etc. still missing. Eddie and I will have to work on it later because I had to hang up and rush off to softball. Some fields are a full two hours behind schedule because of the carry over games from yesterday. We are lucky, ours is only 10 minutes behind. It is hot and humid, but by 6:00 p.m. the heat and humidity was not as bad as earlier in the day. Girls had a good warm up, stayed loose, and were ready to play. We are visitors and hit first. Paige is on the mound and has her good stuff. Ball is moving. The Renegades are baffled by her junk (and for the uniformed readers, having good junk is a good thing. It means the ball is moving all over the place, and hard to hit). The first two innings are scoreless. In the third Patty and Katrina lead off with back to back walks and advance to second and third on a passed ball. Katie hit a fly ball to center, but Patty was thrown out at home on a great throw. Katrina was then driven home by a clutch hit by Ariel. Wicked up 1-0. In the third Megan made a great hustle play throwing a girl out at first after her shot up the middle was deflected by Paige. Again in the fourth Megan saved a run by snagging a line drive down the line. In the fifth Alexa lead off with a walk and Patty followed with a single to left. Coach Dave then put some extra speed on the bases and substitute Di for Alexa and Brook for Patty. Katrina walked to load the bases. Di scored on a passed ball. Then Ariel came up with another clutch hit and drove in two more runs with a double to right. Wicked leads 4-0. In the sixth Megan made another diving stab on a line to keep the Renegades off the bases. The infield of Megan, Katrina, Julia, and Patty were all over the place through out the game playing flawless defense. And Paige kept the outfield rested allowing only one ball to be hit out off the infield. Alexa came to the mound in the seventh and closed out the game by striking out the last two batters. Wicked wins 4-0 and moves on to play the San Jose Sting at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. Winner’s bracket is now down to 32 teams. 42 teams have been sent home already, and another 32 teams will be gone after the next round of play Friday. After the game the parents and players go off to dinner. Half the team goes to the Buffalo Wing to watch ESPN were Coach Dave's cousin, Kyle Loza, won first place in the X Games Motorcycle jumping contest. The other half went to a Casa Del Rey near the hotel. There we were entertained by Paige who did her Hunchback of Notre Dam imitation with her ice pack on her shoulder. Girls went back to bed by 10:00 p.m. Coaches and most of the parents went back to the field to watch softball until 1:00 a.m. Practice tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. August 3rd. Another early practice under cloudy skies. Rain in the forecast for later on tonight. Lunch and then off to the fields for warm up. We had watched the end of the Sting game the night before. They have a big left pitcher who throws hard and has a mean drop. The girls are loose. Game time. Alexa is on the mound. We are home team. Alexa pitches a great first inning and holds them scoreless. Sting pitcher is mean and sets our girls down 1, 2, 3. 0-0 after one inning. 0-0 after two innings. 0-0 after 3. 0-0 after four. 0-0 after 5. In the sixth they get two runners on but fail to score. In our half of the inning both Alexa and Patty get hits, but we fail to score. 0-0 after six. 0-0 after seven. Both Alexa and the Sting pitcher are throwing superbly. The stands are filled with spectators and college coaches. We go into international tie breaker. They bunt their runner over to third. One out. Alexa gets two strikes on the next batter, but she reaches out and punches the ball to right field through our drawn up infield. Reina throws her out at first but the run scores. In our half of the inning we bunt our runner over to third. Then with two outs Alexa hits a ball towards short. Tough play for the shortstop. Runner heading home. Shortstop fires off balance to first. The first base man scoops up the ball in the dirt and seems to be pulled off the bag. The signal from the ump. She's out. Coach Dave asks for help. Ump does not give it. Game over. After the game Coach Dave puts it in prospective for the girls. This was a great softball game. This is where the team wanted to be. Playing at nationals in front of hundreds of fans, in front of dozens of college coaches. Playing great ball. It was too bad either team had to lose. Unfortunately it was us. But we still have life. Next game, 10:00 p.m. tonight. Rain is starting to come down. We are watching the 8:00 p.m. between Illinois Chill and Indiana Blaze. We will play the winner. Blaze is up and looking good. they definitely have the better pitching. Good rise ball, curve ball, change up. Throws hard. We go and warm up in the rain. Weather report talks about five tornados in the nearby counties. The Blaze win and come walking in about 9:30 p.m. Games starts about 9:45. Paige is on the mound. Rain picking up. Everything is wet. Outfield grass is slippery. Infield is starting to get muddy. In the second a misplayed ball in right puts Blaze runner on third and Blaze scores. 0-1. In the third an infield error lets another runner on and Blaze pusher her across. 0-2. Wheels really come off in the third. Our characteristically solid defense makes another infield and out field error and Blaze puts three more runs on the scoreboard. 0-5 and not looking good. Rain is getting heavier. Girls are still upbeat and have not given up. Parents are wet and cold and they have not given up. By the sixth inning the rain is heavy, but the game goes on. Reina and Megan hit back to back doubles to put Wicked on the board. 1-5. Into the seventh we go. Alexa has replace Paige, who pitched well but did not get her normal defensive support from the team. The conditions are so wet that Alexa can not even grip the ball. The Blaze scored two more in the rainstorm. Wicked loads the bases, but fails to score. Final Score, Wicked 1 Blaze 7. This was Blaze's 5th win in a row after dropping their first game. They are a good team with a lot of fight. Good Luck Blaze. August 4th. Good to sleep in. It is Reina's birthday. We have a late breakfast and then go to the Go Cart track for her birthday. Everybody gets five tickets for the track. It is hot, and humid, but fun. Even the adults get into it as Coach Dave, Coach Mike, Coach Troy, Vivian, Audrey, and Kirk all go on the slick track and try to spin each other out (without getting thrown out of the course by the attendant). Later on the girls all claim to be 16 years old (half of them are) and also go on the slick course. Di is the only one with a driver’s license, and she seemed to spin out the most. Afterwards we went across the street to have a Diary Queen Ice Cream Birthday Cake in the air conditioning. Then most of us went to the fields to see who was left. We were pulling for Manny and his Nemesis team. They made it to the Quarter Finals in the winner’s bracket, and played on until Sunday, eventually finishing 7th. Good job Nemesis. August 5th. Some families have left already. The Limon’s, Gaber’s, Coletta’s, Oviedo’s, and Tsuchiyama’s decided to take a 400 mile drive to see Mount Rushmore. Up at 5:30 a.m. and off by 6:00 a.m. With a few stops on the way it took about 6 hours to reach our goal. The Sturgis Bike Rally was starting up during the next week, and already thousands of Harley bikers were in the area. The towns were full of bikers. So was Mount Rushmore. We all spent about two hours at the site, and then went to lunch. We were all impressed with the National Monument. The exhibits regarding the carving of the four presidents were fascinating. Did not know that 90% of the carving was done with dynamite, and the rest with jack hammers. Some decided to take an extra two hours going to Crazy Horse, but we decided to go back early and check out the city of Wall. On the way home Billy and Lisa keep us posted on who was still in. Nashville Cruisers beat Southern Force in the finals. Both beat the favorites, OC Batbusters and Killer Bees who finished 3rd and 4th. Southern Force had lost their second game and then won 11 in a row before being beet 11-2 in the finals. We got back about 10:30 p.m. and packed. Others got back as late as 12:30 a.m. One of our great accomplishments was packing up 8 folding chairs that people left in the hallways because they did not have room. We duct taped them together in two bails of four chairs and took them home with us along with the blue ice chest that Billy had left in the hallway. August 6th. One by one the families pack up and leave. Everyone but Reina and I (with Grandma) are flying out of Omaha. We are flying out of Sioux Falls. We changed to a 7:30 p.m. flight to Santa Ana so that Grandma could fly out with us instead of driving with Laura. However, the flight did not leave until 9:30 p.m. because it was held up by a storm in Chicago. We got into Denver too late to make our connection and ended up having to stay overnight and took a flight out in the morning. Missed another day of work. Great trip. 18 Gold Wicked tryouts end of August.

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