Yesterday was hard--how do I get myself into these things? I'm sore and going on 6 hours of sleep, but glad to be alive.

The good news is my parents showed up at the house a little after 9, seemingly in quite good health. My Dad thinks some medicine he was taking made him sick (so he stopped taking it). It was a great relief to me to have him better. We talked some about the garden and a few other things.

I made a double batch of brownies and ate breakfast. Ray and I took a walk, not too long, with Cameron. We showered and got dressed and left the house about 11 to sit all day at a table at the Twilight Criterium, selling raffle tickets on a cool bike, and telling people about our upcoming ride (in three weeks). You can see it on the Land Trust website.

It was a long day, but mostly pleasant. The temperature didn't hit 80 and we were under a tent, although it felt pretty warm late in the afternoon. I went in to Ben and Jerry's and got some black raspberry frozen yogurt (which entitled me to use their bathroom). We finished the sandwiches that we brought first thing. And I had a big cooler of water and cups. We raised about $100 in 6 hours, okay but not great--about the point at which you are not sure whether it is worth it. There was some boredom, relieved partly by having iPhone, although I stayed alert and paid attention to the potential supporters for the most part.

The hard part of the day came at 5:30. Remember how I was supposed to have 7 or 8 volunteers? It ended up being just me and Ray, although Nancy and Heather from the Land Trust staff and Laura-the-intern staffed our table while we became marshalls. This is sort of a cool thing. The Twilight Criterium is a really big deal, a professional bike race that comes to Athens and goes around and around the downtown area--about 12 blocks maybe. Really fast. Tons of people line the route and there are lots of opportunities for drinking in temporary sidewalk bars. It is kind of a cool thing, although I am not a big fan of large drunk crowds late at night. We have been several times, but not every year.

Ray and I and another woman were assigned to one particular crossing. We let people come and go when it was safe and blocked the way when it was not. Ray had a radio and they were supposed to tell him when they rounded the corner that we couldn't see, so we could stop traffic. It was pleasant enough and not too difficult up until the last (and biggest) race. The men zoom around so fast, there wasn't much time to let people through. The crowd backed up and they were ugly, almost like a riot. I began to be afraid someone would be killed. There were small children and one guy in a wheelchair. The people trying to cross blocked the people trying to come from the other side and it was a nightmare trying to keep them from hurting themselves or the riders. I could see the national headlines: Bike race will no longer be held in Athens after fatalities... We finally added another volunteer and three policemen to our crossing and cleared a space and made some order.

Personally, I don't see why they have to get across during the time the race is going. If you come downtown during a major event like that, you should know you can't get into that area. The interesting thing is that most of the people (especially the most obnoxious ones) were not there for the race. Not being a person who spends much time downtown late on Saturday nights, I did not realize (although I have read about it) the extent of the young people drinking. Why did I think there were so many bars? They just had to get through to meet their friends at such and such a place. They were swearing and pushing and said they didn't care if they got hit (of course we didn't care either, we just wanted to protect the cyclists). It was pretty scary and unpleasant. The other young volunteer who joined us, Kaitlyn, tried to keep me from getting too worked up. "It's not worth trying to engage them," she said, as I was explaining over and over why we were doing this.

In the end, we survived and no one was hurt (much) on our watch. The policemen are my friends... We got back to the headquarters in the parking garage and turned in our radio and our yellow vests about 11. We went up to our car on the third floor and drove it down, only to find we couldn't get out. The person we asked said it would be one o'clock before we could leave. Boy, were we mad! That was the final straw. We really wanted to go home and go to bed, maybe eating something first. Fortunately, it was only about half an hour before somebody moved aside one of the sections of fencing and we cautiously made our way out.

Almost home and my cell phone rings at nearly midnight. That was a surprise. Well, Nancy, our neighbor and director of the Land Trust, had her car die on the way home, only a mile away. So we went back to get her. Funny how things work out. If we hadn't been trapped in the garage for that extra time, we probably would have been already in bed. As it was, it was not a big deal to go back and get her.