Day 2: Basecamp 1 - Self camp
Day 2: Twin Springs/Ash Springs
Ok, let’s preface this with: off-roading is my happy place; even a bad day out on the trail is a really good day… but this was a “bad day” for me.
But first, ENDURO! I was ready to finally nail a precision enduro. We felt prepared this time. It was going good… until it wasn’t. Somehow I totally screwed up the math and 1/4 of the way in there was a magic 8 minutes that had made its way into the calculations. Everything was off and there was nothing we could do about it except keep on going and do our best. Ugh! Another gut punch right out of the gate! Super preventable too… 9/20 pts. {insert poop emoji}
No time to be upset we just have to keep going. The enduro ended at the edge of a wilderness preserve where it was IMPERATIVE that we not speed. Course officials from the rally were hidden with radar guns and were would be given penalties if even slightly going over. So we poked along… it was painful to be honest but I tried hard to not speed. We found some check points… the day dragged on. It felt so slow… just a grind; every single check point we struggled to be confident in clicking… but we did get multiple blacks. Time was killing us. I felt like every team passed us (cause they did). At the very end of the day we decided to go for a black on a dry lake bed. Dead Reckoning: a true heading and distance test of skills. In the end we got it (4/5 pts) but it was not pretty and it defiantly was not worth it mentally nor emotionally.
We finally found ourselves at the self-camp site and I had been looking forward to some peace and quiet… but instead they packed us all into a long airstrip where we were right next to everyone… so that made me grumpy too. Ha! Who knew you could get grumpy camping at an amazing place… seeing a COMET (yes it wouldn’t be back for 8600 years!) and off-roading all day. Mentally I was done. This is where team work really steps in. Adri knew I was spent. She made me dinner, got me an ice cream cone at the gas station (!), was uplifting and encouraging, and just let me be grumpy! What a peach.
