thank you google maps!

I continued to drive.  Using my phone I looked up the stage assignment schedule.  Mini’s competition was not the first group to dance.  She had about 5 groups ahead of her.  Some of them had over 15 competitors.  It would take time for all of those competitors to dance 2 rounds a piece.  

This is what the original
 mapquest looked like -
until a little box popped up offering to
 'show me the way'!  I admit to being
 technologically challenged.  Sometimes
my google maps talk to me,
and sometimes they don't.
  If I had blinked, I would have
missed the alternate route because
 google was in shy mode.

I happened to glance at my phone.  I was getting a message from google maps.  Would I like to save 25 minutes and go an alternate route?  WOULD I?  HELL, YES!  I have never experienced a google map re-route before.  It was like divine intervention.  

Game on.  We were going to press onward.  I was banking on the other competitions taking close to an hour, and I was begging google maps not to fail me. 

Mini was nervous as all Hell.  I kept trying to reassure her.  Remember how fuzzy I felt in my head because I believe I should not have eaten gluten free pizza a few nights before the Indianapolis road trip?  I was now driving very tired - but not the kind of sleepy tired, just too-tired-to-think tired.  Thank goodness for small favors.

It makes me wonder - what do other moms use as an excuse when everything hits the fan, if they don't have the gluten-contamination as a go-to?

I think the adrenaline of wondering whether or not we were going to arrive in time for Mini to dance was providing me with the energy I needed to get there.  

Once it got to be 4:00 in Indianapolis I texted a mom that I knew was already there and asked her to keep me up to date on how the stages were moving.  I glanced at our estimated arrival every few minutes and announced periodically that I had successfully shaved off another minute.  We were now looking at a 4:45 arrival time.

Yes, there was some lead foot action happening.  (so many posts about my speeding days, have you read this one?)  I knew if I got pulled over, it would possibly blow our chances of getting there on time.  

My kids have competed at these dancing competitions for almost 10 years.  You could call me seasoned.  Well, seasoned or crazy.  Back in the day when I had 5 dancers, I really struggled to arrive to even local venues on time.  I was known to order kids to put their dance shoes on in the car so that they would be prepared to run up and dance an instant after arriving.  It took years for me to realize, racing to a stage at the last minute was not ideal for my dancers.  They need time to warm up and become mentally prepared.  Or maybe it just helped that the crowd thinned, and it took less time to get fewer dancers ready.  

Having said all of that, I have NEVER had a kid miss a competition.  I wasn’t about to screw up my track record now.