PAAVO WEST

The Alumni Perspective

By Pat Wylie

even decided to take a ride on a mechanical horse. It was a great day on the Paavos. Its possible to have fun at working hard. In fact, its probable. PAAVO TRADITIONS Mount Rushmore Run 1. Run on a new location 2. Used to be run on the downhill of Mount Rushmore Mount Rushmore 1. Traditional Picture Where We Mimic the Presidents Expressions 2. 2006 Wall Drug 1. Motivated Lunch (On Our Own) 2. Free Water 3. Time to Shop

DAY 12 Mount Rushmore and Wall Drug

We started the morning underwater. The Flintstones Campground got hammered with a hard rain. Despite the wet weather and the cold morning the Mount Rushmore Run had to get done. It was run on an old rail line converted into a gravel path. Coach Sellers and I drove the van to certain spots to drop off water or snap a few pictures. Other than those few stops, we hardly saw any of the runners. It was truly something they had to do on their own, and they did it with thoughts of the next day running through their heads. We had some great performances and many people beat their indexed time. After the run was over, we packed up our soaking wet tents and sleeping bags and headed east. Like Coach Sellers always says, Adair, Iowa is a long ways away. Then we made our final climb of altitude up to Mount Rushmore. The runners and I split off from the coaches and took a look at the famous sculpture. We took the traditional picture where we mimic the presidents expressions and watched all of the excited people. Then we loaded into the car, made the descent from the mountains and drove to Wall Drug. We ate dinner, took some funny pictures and bought a few things. We were amazed by how big the place was. One of the runners