Family, Friends, Football and ...........Warriors?

Our daughter and son-in-law from Idaho flew in last weekend for a whirlwind weekend of events. It was great to see them as always, but their weekend was definitely jam-packed with things to do. They visited family and friends on Sat., part of which included watching his alma mater's football team win. On Sun. our two daughters participated in Warrior Dash, an obstacle course in the hilly, forested, muddy area north of where we live. Our eldest daughter had done this last year and roped the younger one into it this year as well. Hubby, son-in-law and I went to spectate. Believe me there were a lot of spectacles to behold. I was beginning to wonder if we had stepped into the Twilight Zone. Apparently part of the event is coming up with some of the most unique and ,dare I say, outlandish um .........costumes. Some I have to say were well thought out and rather clever. Others, well we'll just leave it at that.
The event proceeds benefit St. Jude's as well as a couple other organizations and has thousands of participants divided into several heats for the two day weekend, with about 500 in each heat. The heats start every half-hour. Needless to say, it's very dusty and since there is water involved in about half of the course, very muddy. The course is 3.1 miles in length and has 8-10 obstacles to go through including a pond, rope ladder and jumping over fire. It's also very crowded with people ready to run the course and those that have already run the course milling about along with the observers, volunteers, etc.

Before

After, I couldn't be prouder!

 

Let's just say they were some of the cleanest participants to finish. Note the guy(?) over the right shoulder of daughter on the left. Need I say more?

It was a lot of fun to watch the parts we could actually see. We tried to station ourselves at some of the obstacles to get photo ops but that was an obstacle course in itself. After washing off in a communal water hole/warrior bath and a quick change of clothes in a local gas station restroom we were off for much needed sustenance before dropping off the Idahoans at the airport. It was a long, busy but fun day. Except the last part.