Pining for the Fjords

As you can see from reading these missives, the Ragnar Florida Keys trip was a blast.  We generally count a Ragnar a success if we all make it out in one piece without too many injuries, but this year, we actually did really well.  Here’s the post Luis made the day after the race: Holy crap!  Look at us go! In addition, a few days after the event, we received the news that our van won Best Van Decorations for the picture contest Ragnar was holding on their Instagram page!  I don’t know what, if anything, we win for either of these items yet, but hopefully, we’ll find out soon. I know I’ve already shared this, but just bask in the awesome one more time Time to get a little sappy for just a moment… I truly want to thank everyone who helped us during this event.  As a wise sage once said, it takes a village to run a Ragnar, and that was especially true this time, since all of us were coming from across the country.  Mom , thank you for serving as our Van M

On Monday morning, the gang did their separate thing for awhile (Murph and Meg ate breakfast at the Conch, I logged into class, Chris and Taira wandered a bit, and Scott and Erin watched the season premiere of The Walking Dead from the night before), but we gathered together around 10am to walk to the shuttle stop.  We originally thought about driving the van to Key West, but given the parking limitations (small island + tons of tourists + a dearth of available parking spaces = wanting to end one’s self) and our desire to imbibe in several alcoholic beverages each, we decided the $4 shuttle was the way to go.  The shuttle makes several stops, so it ends up taking about two hours to go from Marathon to Key West, which is twice as long as it would be to drive on our own, but we got to sit back, enjoy the scenery, and have someone else transport us, so it was worth it.  We were on the sunny side of the bus Additionally, as anyone familiar with cheap mass transit knows, the p

We woke up on Sunday morning around 8ish, having slept like the proverbial logs all night long.  After a quick shower, we coordinated the team and headed a mile down the road to breakfast at the Spotted Pig. Ready?  Break! You know it’s good if there’s a wait We had to wait for a bit (it was 9:30 on a Sunday morning), but we were in the shade and the breeze felt great.  Murph’s wife Megan arrived the night before via the shuttle from Fort Lauderdale, and she and Murph stayed at the Sea Dell to finish up a load of laundry, but they were able to join us later after the laundry was done.  This led to one of my favorite post-run moments; where we were seated at the Spotted Pig, Scott had a small view of A1A, and as we were talking, he suddenly went deathly white.  He was able to sputter out that he saw our van drive by (as you remember from the pictures, only one vehicle looked like our van); he forgot for a moment that Murph and Megan still had the keys at the motel

Both Taira and I were teaching class/serving as mentors to faculty candidates during this trip, so we were sharing the use of my netbook for access to class.  Since we hadn’t been able to access our course forums since early on Friday morning (at the Hampton Inn in Fort Lauderdale), I lobbied for our next break to occur at the nearest free Wifi location, the Marathon Mickey D’s.  It being 10am on a Saturday morning, the rest of our group was more than happy to grab breakfast while we logged in. Once breakfast was done, we realized we were only a mile away from our lodging for the next few nights, the Sea Dell Motel, and we decided to try for an early check-in.  Although the rooms for the Olsen and Murphy parties weren’t quite ready, the larger room shared by Erin, Taira, and Scott was, so we were able to rest, change clothes, and use the facilities in a legitimate room and bathroom, which was outstanding.   Chris and Scott also took a quick dip in the swimming pool, and we ladie