An epic journey!

We made it! Fifty long hours after beginning our journey, we are safely located in a large dorm tower at the University of Tennessee. We are now beginning to have the true DI experience. Teams from all over the world (we've seen kids from several states, Poland, Korea, Mexico, and even Promontory so far) are gathered together on campus. We've eaten in the dining hall and the girls had a fun relaxing outdoor swim tonight.

The festivities begin tomorrow (Wed) with a large opening ceremony.

Getting here was not without its tribulations, but no journey is truly an epic one without some bumps along the way. We had great Mexican food in Seattle our first night then settled into a hotel that can only be described as seedy (Nicole swears they used another hotel's photos for their website advertising). This was fine, as we only needed a place to sleep, and everything was going okay until the middle of the night bathroom-saturating throw-up episode from one of our junior members (we've agreed on anonymity for the embarrassing stuff). Giggle-inducing quote of the crisis: "Mum, it was even coming out my nose!"

We made it to the airport okay in the morning, but soon discovered that Southwest has no prebooked seating and getting on the plane is essentially a cattle call. This meant initially that four girls were unhappily and unexpectedly separated from their mums in the jam-packed plane. Three of the families were reunited fairly quickly, but one pair remained separated about 45 minutes until a mid-flight panic session elicited such tears of sorrow from the poor girl that a kindly couple took pity on her and moved so she could sit with mum.

This worked out great for the young girl, as the wife of the couple was a grandma travelling to Tennessee for her grandson's Destination Imagination competition. So she brought out her many team pins from previous competitions and introduced our young girl to the popular art of pin training, and was so charmed by our young Canadian that she ended up giving her a bunch of pins, and sending her to the back of the plane to deliver pins to trade to the other girls.

We got to Nashville and got introduced to surly American service by a very grumpy shuttle bus driver, and then got settled into a much nicer hotel than our Seattle accommodation, but it was nowhere near the "eight blocks" to the downtown core that the travel agent had promised.

We ventured out as a group for southern barbecue dinner, but the barbecue joint was closing as we arrived, so we settled for the very authentic down home Waffle House diner. When I asked the waitress if she thought the girls were up to walking to the downtown she gave me a serious look and said "Uh uh. No walking. Not around here!" We then cautiously ventured back to our hotel and enjoyed mum and girl hen parties in adjoining rooms.

This morning we were up and at it early to see a bit of Nashville before noon. Got a taxi van into the downtown core and were at the Country Music Hall of Fame (a Mecca for Tara, who was making a pilgrimage for her dad and herself) at opening time at 9 a.m.

We all enjoyed a couple of hours there (I liked it because I love music and history) (the girls liked seeing Elvis' gold-plated cadillac) and then did some tacky tourist shopping and had the world's fastest lunch (we challenged them to feed the 10 of us in 45 minutes flat) and ran out to make all our connections to get the bus to Knoxville.

Had a nice two-and-a-half hour bus ride through green rolling hills and countryside and arrived at this very large university in the late afternoon.

Now we've eaten, the girls have had a swim, and everyone's settling into their beds.

Mrs Neufeld: If you're reading this, please share with the girls' teachers and classmates.

It was quite an event-filled journey to get here but we're having fun and getting along and the girls are turning heads with their red-and-white Canada hats.

Love to all,

Anne, Emma, Tara, Danielle, Verna, Susan, Nicole, Lauren, Cheryl, and Carlee.