Did I mention that it's really late/early? Our incoming flight put us in Terminal C and we scheduled to depart from Terminal B. To get from the one to the other, there is a really long set of moving walkways that go under the tarmac to the other side. Alec, with his video ideas (and the late hour and delirium setting in), comes up with an idea to record ourselves on the moving walkways. We've got the tripod set up so that we can both talk to the camera (footage not used), and also set it up to record us as we're laying down on the handrails and floating by (footage used). It's really late, and we're beyond control now.

Finding our gate (B3) we end up laying across the benches and trying to sleep. Alec gets to sleep almost immediately. I think that I saw the CNN Headline News Airport Network thing cycle 3 times. Not only was that going, but on the speakers they had some horrible slow jazzy version of Norwegian Wood… and it kept cycling over and over and over. As crazy as it sounds I actually wanted to listen to the Beatles' version of it, just so I could get the crappy version out of my head. I finally got some sleep, but am only down for an hour and a half or so.

Overjoyed by the prospect of finally getting some food, I take my turn straightening my hair and go over to the little Starbucks booth. I get a Cheese Pastry (which was really good) and a Blueberry something or other. Did I tell you yet that the Cheese Pastry was really good? Alec says that I must have told him that 4-5 times. He gets something as well, and we're off to Philadelphia again in seats 1A and 1B. Alec and I both got another hour of sleep (and a breakfast sandwich).

Philadelphia welcomes us, but our ride back doesn't. Apparently in the communication about our arrival, some things weren't communicated. Our flight arrived at 9:30 AM, and the arrival time was understood to be on the other side of the clock. After a little wait (and additional key footage) we get on our way to ah-oo-doo-bone (Audubon).

Upon arrival at our new base of operations, towels are offered to us if we would like to shower. The towels stayed there all day. Shortly into the conversation, we discover that our uncle will NOT be joining us. Apparently a back injury was suffered, and worsened, and he decided to back out, no pun intended. Though a hit to the possible marketing of the group, optimism soon wins out, and we forge ahead. Original attempts were made to fill out the application, but soon the conversation developed into a group therapy session. Surprisingly little is said by yours truly. Sleep deprivation might have set in, but I generally agreed with what was said. The finer details of the conversation won't be presented here.

Our conversation evolved around the application itself, and questions presented there. I have asked Sarah to type up the contents of our application so that I can add it here. We'll check on that one as a future feature. The conversation continued, but I find myself back at the computer to start work on the video. A plan for the actual video takes hours to come about, but I started on it at this point. I picked through what was there and came up with what I thought would be good to include, always remembering that we're limited to 180 seconds.

My father ended up catching the flight to Dulles as well as a flight up to Philadelphia. He was supposed to get in at about noon, and people departed to go get him (and some additional footage). When he got in, I think that the reality of it all starts to set in. We were all together, ready to apply to be on The Amazing Race. Sure, we could have done the exact same thing had we actually planned, but this was much more adventurous, spontaneous, and was more than just an idea.

The rest of the day was spent gathering additional footage, trying to hammer out ideas, taking pictures, and working on t-shirts that didn't really happen.

We've agreed that Alec's idea for the video is just fine, and we'll go with it. We want to set up a phone call from Sarah at the beginning of the video to Dad then Alec. Alec stops by to pick me up, and we're off to start our Amazing Race. It shows us all doing things to get to Philly and ends up with crazy drivers picking us up. At the very end of the film is some text explaining our purpose, and why we want to be on the Amazing Race, concluded with our logo.

We needed individual pictures, as well as a group picture. Those were all taken. We tried to print up our logo to go on the t-shirts, but that ended up not working. We decided to go with the plain t-shirts.

The video's letters were a little messed up. I had accidentally set the margins on the video to be a bit wider than the VHS would display properly. I went back, fixed the video, and sent it off to the VHS. My contribution to the group was finally finished.

All said, this day was long and hectic, but we got what we needed to get done. At some late hour that I don't remember, we all headed to bed. Sarah was near total melt-down, and we were all really exhausted. We had the plan of starting the next day out the door at 6:30. On getting into bed, I remember thinking that Liza's breathing was a little loud… but then I fell asleep after a fairly long day.