120,000 people?

I estimated the crowd today at the Race for the Cure to be about 30, maybe 40, thousand people. Reports I'm seeing on line have estimates up to 120,000!

No wonder I lost Bonnie.

But let's backup. We arrived at Fairmont Park at exactly 6 am. The buses were lined up and ready to go. There were a lot of them. I slipped off my Birks and decided I could just walk across the grass to the bus. No use putting the sneaks on before I have to.

Our bus driver was breaking laws by texting and driving. He got lost. We were on the first bus, but arrived maybe as the third or fourth bus. And blew right past the art museum. How is that possible? It takes up several city blocks!

We hiked back and went to the survivors breakfast. As we suspected it was all bread based. What was shocking was the Entenmann's breakfast goodies. No Tastykakes. Is nothing sacred? Bonnie left with a cup of tea and some fruit.

We ran into Stephanie from the YWCA working in the Koman booth. A job I helped with a couple years ago.

I took my 3-Day backpack because I knew we'd pick up lots of stuff. We did. Lots and lots of it. We had our pix taken three times. Once at the Bank America booth, once at Ford, and once at the Cancer Treatment Centers. The first two gave us a card to claim our photos. The last was an old fashioned photo booth. I waited for the pixs while Bonnie ran for the survivors parade and photo.

This is where we made the mistake. We should have planned a meeting spot. We didn't.

I went to watch the hoopla and even attempted to take a video on my camera. After it was over this sea of pink walks down the stairs of the museum and through the crowd. When it first started there was an aisle. Within 5 minutes there wasn't People joined their family members.  I waited for a while and knew I wouldn't see Bonnie so I decided to go to the Start line. Logically place to wait in my pea-sized brain.

Problem was, Bonnie didn't know where the start line was. She went to the finish line. Phones were not working well and texts didn't work at all.  I was screaming in the phone. Thousands of people were passing me.

Oh, and did I mention she fell? Off the curb right in front of the art museum. She has a goose egg on her knee.

I went to the finish line, we connected and headed for the start. Runners were done. Walkers were already crossing. I think that the finish clock said 39 minutes on it and we hadn't even started yet.

We finally start and were in a group of thousands of people in front and behind. It never eased up. They just kept coming and coming. We spent the race weaving in an out. I'm fairly sure we crossed in under an hour, but I'm not sure of the time. I think they will be posted tomorrow or the next day. Hopefully I can plug in my number and do a search.

I had been waiting about 5 minutes when these people
passed me. The line stretch down the parkway, around the oval,
and past the museum. When Bonnie and I crossed
15 minutes later, there were thousands of people
behind us still waiting to start!

We walked around a bit and went to the Wawa tent for food. They only had donuts and pretzels left.  Good thing I had picked up a couple of strawberry yogurts earlier.

We had to search out the shuttle bus stop since Bozo left us off at the wrong corner. We found it and waited a good 10 minutes to be put on a bus. They were filling them 2 buses at a time, but it was taking forever.

We finally arrived back at the park, and a cop was stationed right by my car. I thanked him for personally watching it.

Things we learned today:

• Don't wear pink to a breast cancer event
• Plan a meeting spot if you get separated
• Check to make sure you have phone/text abilities in your location before you get separated.

CBS3 is one of the sponsors. Here's a link to their coverage.

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official weigh in 232.5. Not bad. Only 1.5 pound gain since my last weigh in six weeks or so ago.