May 3 Long but fun day down at Disney World

Grandson Brandon's lady friend MK and her mates got invited to something called the National Championships of Cheering today and tomorrow at the HP Field House down at the ESPN complex at Disney World.  

Since we are only a 100 miles away, Bette and I thought we would go down and lend some support-  MK was there with her mom, and 30 of her teammates.  

Turns out, this is one of the bigger, but not biggest I was told events of its kind in the United States.  I'm pretty sure there were 30 to 40 thousand people there, including fans, supporters, and athletes.  I say athletes, because these kids were really, really good. 

Clearly, these were the best of the best.  

The venue- this is just across the street from the baseball field

The set up BEFORE the massive crowds

Bette and I had trouble getting in, due to the traffic, had to park a fair way out, walked in, paid our fee  and then tried to get in.  Here, any semblance of order left the building. It was crawling with teams, people, employees, and so forth.  Mass chaos.  There were half hour waits for restrooms, up to an hour for any food, and a lot of the time they didn't have anything, no pizza at one place, no pretzels at another- so we bagged lunch.  

They were running behind a bit (surprise)  but the teams came out pretty rapid fire, and did about a minute and a half routine each, with pretty standard tricks and skills.  

The squads ranged from maybe 20 or so up to maybe 40 or so-  and ages from 10-18.  Some were co-ed, some not.   

Didn't get a lot of shots because everyone kept coming and going- folks were getting angry around because they couldn't see, and there was no jumbotron.  

Finally about 340, MK's team went on. We moved down to the floor in "preferred seating, but still couldn't see very much.  

This is MK's team right at the start-  not sure where she was.  

I then realized wasn't going to get too many quality shots, so I wound up doing an I-Phone video of the routine.  Apparently there were a couple of goods during the routine, including a fall, for which you don't seem to get away with at this level.  

Later we found out from Anna, MK's mom, that the team did not in fact qualify for the grand finals tomorrow, and were eliminated.  There were a few tears to be found we we rejoined the team outside after the routine.  

Tears turned into smiles, and the girls were last seen heading over to Disney World to relax.  

Bette and I headed back, ran into a fairly good rain, a pretty nasty accident on the other side of I-4 involving three autos, and stopped in for a slow dinner service wise at Bob Evans at Palm Coast. 

We will decompress tomorrow for sure.  

Sure the Rock Stars will recover from this and move on to bigger and better things.  

Will be local tomorrow, have to food shop, and may hit a couple of Historical Landmarks.