Relay For Life 2011

Relay For Life 2011 is officially behind me and I am happy.  It was a great event and I have made some really good friends through it.  Our little team was able to raise $2502 and I am thrilled. 

It is no secret that I do not like to be outside for any length of time, let alone for 27 straight hours.  I also like my sleep.  In fact, I just can't get enough.  I am not meant to be awake for 24 hours in a row.  I think it is fair to say that I don't want to hear the words "cancer", "disease" or "cure" one more time.  I have never enjoyed a shower as much as I did at 4:00 am when I came home to drop off a load of things we had taken down from our campsite.  I went from smelling and feeling like something out of a gym bag found at the end of the school year that had been lost around Christmas break, to feeling like a human being again. 

In spite of all these things, I do have to say that I am proud of our accomplishments.  With a lot of help from some good friends we managed to look like we knew what we were doing and have a cohesive look as opposed to last year where we were making signs at the event.  This year for our on-site fundraising we sold Coke and Pepsi products.  Last year we were going to have a poker tournament but came to find out that none of us knew how to play.  We have come a long way as a team. 

The event itself is not my favorite part of Relay.  It involves the previously mentioned camping and sleep deprivation, but we did have some fun.  I got to spend some quality time with people that I don't get to see very often.  Around the 13th hour things start to get entertaining.  People have typically been awake for about 18 to 20 hours and they get slap happy.  In our case it was a bunch of older people trying to dance to hip hop.  It was not pretty. 

That segued into a deep discussion about the capital of South Dakota.  After a quick google search we discovered it was Pierre.  In my sleep deprived state I was not able to name even one city in South Dakota.  I am still not sure I can.  It was also around this time that the people that had attended the Phish concert were returning to the hotels after living the Grateful Dead experience.  One stoned/drunk man paid us $20 for a can of Coke.

Around 7 in the morning I was helping to count the donations.  That pushed me to my mental capacity.  I asked Rachel how many nickles were in a dollar and she told me 100.  I almost believed her and had to work kind of hard to convince her otherwise. 

I had a wonderful experience and I urge you to find a cause you can believe in and get involved. I am really glad I did and now I am looking for a new one.  Any suggestions?