I've been sitting here too long, with a man from Milwaukee..

The haze clears over Lake Michigan and I catch my first glimpse of Milwaukee through the airplane window. It is a fairly unimpressive city with one lone white building that turns out to be just a bank. Jillian is on my left; we've had a great couple of flights stopping in Cleveland along the way, no delays. We even got to meet the pilot, told him all about curling and the Olympics and then went on our way after reminding him to fly safely and try not to crash. Continental is probably one of the best airlines we've flown yet. Certainly a huge improvement after AirTrain.

It's a blazing 85 degrees when we get off the plane. We meet Laura at baggage claim and head upstairs for a bite to eat as we will be waiting a while for a ride to come. Laura spilled her Starbucks everywhere... typical :) I feel like everywhere we go, people just look at us. I mean I won't deny I take extreme delight in watching people's reactions as our broom bag labeled "Team Massachusetts -- Curling" makes its way around the baggage claim carousels. I relish in noting which people are oblivious to oddities in front of them and those that take notice and make mental notes. Maybe because of that broom bag, they will one day try curling for themselves.

We decide to take a cab after an hour or so of waiting. You'd think a fifteen minute ride would be less than forty dollars. Either way we make it -- we step out of the cab and gaze at the monstrosity before us that is the Pettit Olympic Training Center. From there it is all dreamlike; the first person we meet is Rob Meakin who is off to rejoin Kerry Burtnyk in hopes of winning the Briar. Everyone that is anyone in the USA curling world is there... Debbie McCormick, Erika Brown, Todd Birr. We have made it..





***

After a perfect balance of hard work and socializing, Team Walker heads back to the East Coast. We've overused all of our muscles, made plenty of contacts (including the USA Women's Olympic Soccer Coach, April), and learned tons of new and interesting information about our sport. It really is all coming together -- Curling is becoming a full-fledged, funded, scientifically explored, Olympic sport. Someday professional USA curling atheletes will exist... and how cool would it be to be one of them?