Part 1 of the trip to the USA to support Tanya doing Ironman World Championship in Utah and the New York Marathon. Very important bag carrying / support crew role. 23rd October to the 18th November 2022.

Sunday 23 October. Headed off from Townsville running into the crew from work headed to Heron Island. Spent the afternoon with the Hodgess family before meeting up with Tanya. We made our way to the airport and hung out in the Qantas Club before departing on our 13 hour flight. Touch down in LAX, quick terminal switch and then back on a plane to Las Vegas baby! Got in about 1am and after a long wait for the hire car we made it to bed about 3am.

Monday 24 October. Dropped Tanya’s bike off to the bike shop to get rebuilt then headed off to Hoover Dam. Did the tour really interesting walking through the tunnels. A whole lot of concrete! Really cool art deco finishings including a phenomenal amount of palazzo finished floors (that were apparently installed for $60,000 but would cost millions to do today) – even the floors inside the turbine room with palazzo! Got to stick out heads out a “window” on the dam wall. The dam levels are as low as they’ve ever been since construction. Headed back to Vegas, via Boulder City for lunch, to pick up the bike and jet lag caught up with us, so an afternoon nap. Lazy dinner near the Best Western West at Bambinos East Coast Pizzaria (Grandma’s Pizza for the win).

Tuesday 24 October. We packed up and loaded the car to head to St George in Utah. After some craziness on the highway getting out of Vegas we were on the open road staring at highway and desert. A little way out of town we turned off and headed into the Valley of Fire National Park. Stop at the information centre and into the park to find the most amazing rock formations! As we drove through the park we decided we walk into the Fire Wave. Short 2.5 mile round trip to see very cool patterns and take numerous photos. We headed around to White Rocks and walked a little way in to check out the mammoth white walls of rock. We then got back on the road and found lunch at The Inside Scoop in Overton (very cool old Coke advertising). Back on the road to get to St George in time for athletes check in. Spent some time on the Athletes Village looking at merch and stalls and Tanya checking in. With a hot tip from the locals at the info centre we had really yummy Mexican at Don Pedro’s Mexicana for dinner.

Wednesday 25 October. Up on a chilly morning to drive out for a practice swim at Sand Hollow State Park. A looooong line to get in but Tanya cracked on with her swim and wasn’t as cold as expected (probably was). Got dry and I drove back into town and headed back into the Athletes Village for a couple supplies and to suss out some good parking spots. Stopped in to pick up the most expensive sim card ever and had lunch at Buffalo Wings (it was meh). Lazy afternoon chilling out while Tanya have the bike a little test ride to make sure it was ready to go. Dinner at the Welcome function with some really cool Hawaiian dancing and fire twirling, Country music and Native American dancing (I love the hoops) followed by the Athletes Briefing.

Thursday 27 October. Lazy chill morning around the apartment. Then we headed off to find a pharmacy to find some electrolytes, ended up at Target (which had a pharmacy and mini grocery store in it). Out to Sand Hollow State Park to do bag and bike drop off and back into town centre to do run bag drop off. Dinner at home and John Wick movies and an early night with alarms set for before 4am.

Friday 28 October. RACE DAY! Up well before the crack of dawn to drop Tanya off to the shuttle. I headed home for a bit before I headed back to jump on my shuttle to the start. It was cold! It was about 3°C so I layered up and thankfully the hand warmers kept me today. Tanya was in the first age group wave Street the professionals at 7.40am. She had a good swim and despite freezing a solid start to her bike. While she was riding up them crazy hills I caught the shuttle back to town and had hot chocolate at the bakery. I decided to head out and meet her on the ride course and cheer her on before dashing back to town to see her finish the bike course. I hung around the Ironman Monument as it had the best spot to see the Athletes about 6 times. She finished the afternoon strong and so impressed she got it done in 7 hours 40 min. Bit of recovery time before collecting the bags and bikes and heading home for a shower. Such a fun day! For celebratory dinner we headed to the Cliffside Resturant – what a view! After diver and 1 glad of wine we were both ready for an early night.

Saturday 29 October. Slept in this morning and then we headed into town centre to watch the professional men finish their race and to cheer on all the age category men finishing their bike and on their run course. Had tacos for breakfast and hot dog for lunch. Looked around some of the shops in very cool old historical buildings.  Home to chill before heading back out for the Celebration Dinner. Took a UK girl Caitlin with us and had tacos for dinner and enjoyed the presentations. Couple Aussies placed top 5 in their age categories. Tanya made the event video which was very cool to see – the highlight video is below and you can see her at about the 4.25min mark. 

Sunday 30 October. Up early and headed out to Zion National Park about a 90 minute drive from St George. As we drove in it got cold in the shadow valley and shadow of the canyons. It was so cold (0°C) when we got out there we needed to buy some extra supply’s and socks before we jumped on the park shuttles and headed out into the park. We headed up to stop 9 to do the naked walk until we hit water crossing and didn’t go any further. We caught the bus back down and stopped off to see the condors and for some great views and onto lunch at the Lodge.  We headed off on foot to the Emerald Pools and the Grotto walks. Back on the bus to the Junction and we walked to the Museum and then back to the start at the Information Centre. After heading off we stopped for icecream on our way back to St George. Dinner at the Painted Pony – was delicious!

Monday 31 October. Up on the morning and packed, loaded the van and on the road. Before we hit the road we decided to drive past off the bike course and drive through Snow Canyon. After quick drive we hit the road back to Las Vegas. Easy drive back and dropped the bike off to be taken apart to go back in its car. Then to the Las Vegas Shopping District to kill a couple hours.  Checked into the Downtown Boutique Hotel near Freemont Street (would not recommend staying there). Got dressed in our Aussie Halloween costumes and headed into Freemont After. Lap around the Container Park, slushies and checked out the mayhem.  Dinner at Eureka! And we’d had enough of the smoke so had an early night.

Tuesday 1 November.  Up and wandered down to PublicUS for healthy breakfast and coffee. Very hipster Cafe and amazing food! Loaded up the car and headed to the Las Vegas sign and to the Strip to entertain us before the flight later tonight.  Walked through the Bellagio, then through the Coke and MnM megastores with lunch at Olive Garden. Then down to the Gentian to look at the shops via the Flamingo and Planet Hollywood. Through the Paris before heading off to drop the car off and head to the Airport. Bumpy late night flight.