Our Texas Adventure ~part 2~

........but we were excited to be able to see what our competition looked like the next day. We got up really early that morning to see how long it would take four archers and four adults to get up, eat breakfast, and get to the shooting site. After we did that, we had a whole morning to kill. Our coach didn't have to be at the coaches meeting until 1100 Texas time (1000 Georgia time) and it was only like 0800. It seemed like all day before 1000 came around. My dad took us girls to visit a local jewelry store. I've never seen jewelry that expensive before. They were selling one necklace for $4,000 (though, it was all pretty much pure gold and silver jewelry) After that, three of us went to the fitness center for a while and came back and took a nap. Now, this is all before lunch. When our coach FINALLY got back from the meeting we went to lunch and then went to practice.

If you want to meet some picky line officials, go to Texas. There was a certain line that the coaches couldn't cross and there was another line that the archers who weren't shooting couldn't cross. Boy, if you crossed one of those lines you heard it from the line officials.

We had a pleasant encounter with a lady who thought she owned the world and then some. She comes up to the practice range and, before the official blew the whistle, started moving targets. Ummmm, not good. The targets they happened to be moving were the targets we needed to use. When we asked her if she could just leave one target up she said that we weren't even supposed to be there. She told us that we were supposed to be gone by like 3:30 and that she had the range from then till 6:00. Not true, but she ended up moving some different targets that other people weren't using. After we were done practicing we went back to the hotel to drop off our gear and went to the opening ceremony.

Now, when you put a bunch of teenagers in a hot room with nothing to do while the adults try to get everything in order, you get chaos. The Louisana kids started throwing Mardi Gras beads around, and then everyone joined in. A couple of fights almost ensued when a couple of our archers were pelted in the head. The ceremony itself was pretty cool. The speechs afterward, not so much. One old guy talked for at least 45 minutes. We were bored to tears, and you could tell NO ONE in the audience was listening. You couldn't hear him anyway. When the guy FINALLY finished his speech, he got a standing ovation. When we got back to the hotel we mentally prepared ourselves for whatever tomorrow was going to bring. God was in control and we were going to need His help to do what we had trained months in advance to do.