Bringing home hardware

Today we went to downtown Dallas for the Matrix Challenge Crit.  Joseph and Emily both raced.  This is Emily's first weekend race ever.  She's done some Jr. races at the Wednesday night Crits in FW, but those are really short circuit races.  There isn't a corner on that course.  Today's course was all right angles in almost a figure eight.  They had only a few guys sign up for the Jr. Open so they threw that in with the young 'uns and they also had a 10-14 Girl's category.  Emily was the only entrant, so she has a foot-tall trophy to show for her efforts.  Joseph was up against 8 other guys, he got 4th, a real nice place.  He even won a prime for a set of really nice sunglasses.  Amazing place for him.  Especially considering he woke up this morning and couldn't fully extend his left knee.  I have no clue what's up with that, but I thought that he might be faking so I told him to tough it out.  He still can't put weight on it, but he can still spin so he rode fine.  Just no sprint, but he never needed it today.  Because I'm cheap, we took the train over to downtown big D and rode our bikes the last two miles and change to the race.  I thought that he would be able to work out whatever kinks he had in the knee in that slow ride.  The total fare was only eight bucks, which is less than what it would have cost in gas.  Plus we got to ride the train, which is an adventure in itself.  Even more, we were home by five.  I have been out of town off and on for the last few weekends for racing.  This is the first time in a while that we've raced and then been home the same day.  That in and of itself is a bonus beyond words.  I think I'm going upstairs to read a book.  A real book, with type on pages and everything.