Henry Fencing at the Junior Olympics! (Post 1 of 2)

My oldest son got into fencing about 2 years ago. He fences epee, and he’s small for his age in a discipline where size DOES matter. So at least partly due to that, he’s not great at it. But he loves it. He has the chance to fence up to 5 nights a week, and he’ll do that if he can!

Over the winter, he qualified for the Junior Olympics in Charlotte, North Carolina. There were only 3 boys in his discipline (cadet men’s epee), and the top 3 advanced. He was automatically in!

The Junior Olympics were over a long weekend for the boys (President’s Day mixed with their conferences), so I could basically miss one day of work (I recorded a lecture for my students) and the 3 of us could make this a road trip! So that’s what we did. Henry was NOT "in it to win it" because he had realistic expecations - he was just there to take it in and learn what he could. If you had the chance to be part of the Junior Olympics, wouldn't you do it?!?

This post will be about 60+ pictures that take us through the night before the Junior Olympics, and then I’ll be back with the conclusion of how he fenced along with the road trip back home.

We hit the road on a Wednesday afternoon when I pulled the boys out of school about an hour early:

Reading while on the freeway. The “Stenzel” table
that I made for our Yellowstone trip made this trip as well!


At the last minute, we took my bigger car instead of my wife’s smaller
hybrid because of this snowstorm we’d be going through. We spent
a LONG time going 25 mph behind snowplows on I-90.


Made it across WI, through Chicago, and into Indiana for night one!

My hands were sore when I finally let go of the steering wheel when we pulled into our hotel. I had truly been “white knuckling it” for the previous 2 hours. HIGH STRESS for the end of that drive! There were cars in the ditch, and we witnessed a car right behind me try to change lanes that ended up sliding into the ditch. I was glad I brought my bigger car (it was worth the $200 extra in gas that this trip would cost us to get through this storm with a bit more ease).

At the hotel, they didn’t give us the room I had reserved, and then the one they gave us had a heater/AC unit that was making the worst noise (and was broken). So they upgraded us to a junior suite, so Charlie had a pull-out couch on the left, and Henry and I each had a queen bed on the right:

The morning of day 2: boys still passed out.


We back-tracked 30 mins into Chicago to go to the Museum of Science and Industry!
That was one stop we had to miss during our Chicago trip 1.5 years ago.






Ready for an “Omni-Theatre”-like show.


Apollo mission food from the 70s!


The boys loved building and testing rockets.


A 2013 Cervelo on display.


Nice.


Mirror maze. Only a few bonked foreheads.


Charlie generating power.


Hey, those muffins and bagels look suspiciously like ones stolen from our
hotel’s free breakfast. (We were working to keep our costs low!)

The highlight of this museum was their German U-505 submarine captured in WWII. I highly recommend this tour! The boys and I loved it, and the tour guide was very engaging!

They built this part of the museum AROUND THE SUB years ago!


Touching the tip before going down for our tour.


Inside some of the sleeping quarters. Also, torpedos just lived there too!


Sub selfie.


The captain had more space. Still tight though.






Henry between 2 diesel engines.






Back outside of the sub.


In a train car before heading back to the hotel.


Only ones in the pool on a Thursday night!


We were 30 mins from downtown Chicago, but we were eating Detroit-style pizza. Is that legal?


They never turned the lights on in the pool area - we only had the 1 underwater light.


Everything packed and ready to go by the door at the end of day 2
because we were going to get up EARLY for our big drive the next morning!

Because of that stressful drive the night before, I was actually pooped when the boys went down around 9 pm. So I fell asleep pretty quickly myself. So even though I had a 3:45 a.m. alarm (so we could be on the road shortly after 4:00), I slept so hard that my “body battery” fully recovered to a perfect 100 even with getting up SO early:

Friday: started at 100!


The sky finally showing some color mid-way through Indiana after driving for a few hours.


NO WAY!!!!!


We made it fully through Indiana before stopping to eat...


... at our first Waffle House!!!


PILES of food! We were hungry!


We got through EVERYTHING!!


... barely.


Games on the road.


Pulled off at a random park to run around for 30 mins.


One of 2 travel issues for the day: road construction had us go 5 miles in 61 minutes. Ouch.

The other issue was part of I-40 (if I remember correctly) was flooded. So we couldn’t go the most direct way. Between these 2 minor travel issues, our day of 11.5 hours on the road turned into 13.5 hours on the road. It started getting OLD.

Hello Tennesse!


Our first Buc-ee’s!! The bathrooms were AMAZING!


This place was a trip. We all wanted more time to explore.
We’ll have to hit another Buc-ee’s if we’re ever heading south again!!


Bad selfie outside.

After a LOT more driving, we finally hit Charlotte around 8:30 p.m. and we couldn’t have been happier:

Downtown! (Where we were staying.)


Charlie got the pull-out, and Henry made a nest with the extra cushions.


It was late, but we all needed to MOVE. So the boys hit the pool at 9 pm!


And I did a treadmill interval workout that I posted about 2 months ago.
This is me all sweaty post-workout as the boys are still in the pool.

We all slept well. Saturday (day 4) was our lazy day around Charlotte. Henry didn’t fence until early Sunday morning, but he had teammates fencing on Saturday. So we were going to go get his equipment checked (they have to be inspected before every tournament), cheer on some teammates, and just get a “lay of the land” of the convention center where the tournament was being held.

Charlie taking in our view of parking lots and parking ramps.


Heading down for breakfast - Henry’s still TIRED.


A GOOD breakfast!


Our table was also a light fixture.


I love a good hotel breakfast.

The boys nestled in with some screen time as I took off to a nearby tire shop. I had picked up a nail in the snowstorm 3 nights prior - I was first alerted to an issue on Thursday in Chicago where I had to fill up with air. And then I filled up at least 2 times during our big day on the road on Friday (at a gas station next to the Waffle House in Kentucky, and later in Asheville [which was a cute town, but we couldn’t stick around]). I called around a few places on Saturday morning, and found someone who could take care of it ASAP! Sweet!

Driving past where the Carolina Panthers play! Just a few blocks from our hotel.


Got back on the road 10 minutes later for $30!


Henry in front of the “championship strip” where the winners would fence!


Charlie posing on the podium.






All kinds of grips at the expo...


... and blades upon blades upon blades!


Charlie trying on helmets.


This was about 1/3 of the tournament! They had 80 strips!!!


Henry’s good teammate Angelica on the right!


Teammate Lena on the right.


Henry liked the fencing signs all around the convention center.


Close-up.


Henry was pooped, so he rested in the room as Charlie and I swam.


Flips!


Awkward dives!

That funky shaped building outside the window across the street in those last 2 photos is the Nascar Hall of Fame, which is attached to the convention center where Henry was fencing. That’s why there’s a Nascar in the logo that Henry took his picture next to at the convention center (a few photos up).

I’ll be back with a final post that starts with a fun night out to eat on Saturday night, and then Henry’s big moment fencing at the Junior Olympics on Sunday morning!! Check back for that.

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