OF COURSE some drunk woman fighting with her brother in the hotel hallway would choose our door to claim as hers. OF COURSE they’d stay outside talking about how much they both love Avery, but that they disagree on how good a person he is. OF COURSE after that and having to call the front desk when he started threatening her, I would lay in bed listening to passers by and pondering how closely drunken celebration sounds to drunken anger when it’s 3am.
Brightside: I got to finish the book I started on the plane.
Lesson: Always. Pack. Earplugs.
I got up on time (hooray!) for my race this morning and everything came together without issue. We left the hotel on schedule and Kevin walked me over to the start line. I was pretty nervous and it helped to have him there with me. The race contained many opportunities for self-reflection. I’m mostly going to reserve that story for another day so that I can digest it a little first. But it was good and it was challenging and this city is beautiful and I finished.
Once I crossed the finish line, I found Kevin waiting and we spent a little time enjoying the festivities. I had some snacks and some water and then we returned to the hotel.
I got showered and changed and we headed out for some food. Since football was just starting (at noon – weird) we decided to go to the sports bar that we’d seen a few times during our trip – Yard House. The food was good and the service was superb. We had a really good time.
Our last event of the trip was happening at 6pm – The San Antonio Spurs game vs the Portland Trailblazers.
The AT&T Center is huge building and it’s very nice inside. We got there early at the recommendation of our lunch server. There were a lot of fun things going on before the arena opened its doors: games and live music, food and drink.
Inside, there are plenty of team displays and interactive games. We saw the teams five gleaming NBA championships and everywhere we turned a different staff member wanted to help us enjoy our game experience – take our picture, give use thunder sticks, help us find something we didn’t even know we were looking for.
We stopped in at the team store so Kevin could pick out a hat and then we headed to our seats.
Since basketball left Vancouver and Seattle, for that matter, it requires an effort for us to watch the sport. It’s been years since I’ve been to a game, but Kevin has worked a couple of traveling exhibition games at Rogers Arena over the last couple of years.
There was a moment of silence for President George HW Bush and some high energy, great intros. San Antonio is a city that is devoted to its basketball team. I saw many people decked out – and I mean head to toe – and I didn’t see a single Blazers jersey.
The game ended with a Spurs win, 131-118 so fans left happy.
We Ubered back to our hotel area and headed out for something to eat. Our food intake has been nothing like normal and that’s been hard. I haven’t really felt good as a result and that’s been a struggle for me. We were finally able to get a meal that was, though not perfect, at least it gave us the feeling of proper nourishment.
And then it was time for bed. Travel day back to Vancouver tomorrow!
