2 McLarty's On 2 National Teams!

Congratulations go to my lil'bro, DUSTIN, for making his first USA Swimming National Championships Final in the 400 IM on Wednesday night! He qualified in 8th place and won his first National medal, a 7th Place, in the evening swim! He was in Lane 8 and closing fast in the last 100m on the guy in Lane 7...but got out touched for 6th place by 4-100ths! (that's like a fingernail!)
Now, the story gets even more exciting! Based off his time in the finals swim (a new personal best-time, by the way) Dustin was invited onto the USA Swimming team going test the pre-Beijing Olympics training camp in Singapore and then compete at the Grand Prix Meet in Japan! So he had a big decision to make...the USA Swim trip leaves on the 16th. Dustin is scheduled to be in the middle of Grand Canyon on that day (his 8-day GCE trip departs civilization on the 11th).
Without a second of hesitation, he announced that it looks like he needs to find a replacement Swamper for the GCE trip because he's going to be training and heading to JAPAN to swim!! I'm so proud of Dustin...he straight-up earned this opportunity through hard work during the swim practices all summer and a little bit of 'guts' when he was chasing the 6th place guy in the pool (because that's how he made the cut-off time by less than one-tenth of a second)!!
On the other hand, that same day that Dustin was tearing up the 400 IM, my Mom was getting ready to depart civilization for her 8-day GCE trip. If no replacement is found for Dustin's Swamper position, my mom will have one day between her current trip before heading back out to the Canyon to fill in for Dustin!! What a hard decision! 16 straight days on THE River...too bad I've got my own National Team competition approaching:)!!
Speaking of my National Team Trip...I just purchased the most expensive thing I have ever personally put on a credit card! Yesterday I happily gave my MasterCard number to the United Travel Agent who proceeded to charge me $4074.22 for my "Around the World Ticket!" It's officially booked...I'm traveling for 1 month and 1 day (August 27th to September 28th). I will compete in 3 triathlons during the trip (World Champs, Beijing World Cup, Westchester). I will land in 4 countries (Germany, South Korea, China, and the USA).
Although I fly out of COS, my ticket ends in Denver because I threw an extra spurt from New York to Florida on the ticket (didn't cost me ANY thing!) and I had one segment too many in the USA to make it back to COS. The travel agent offered me one solution: purchase a $400 ticket from Denver to the Springs...are you SERIOUS?!? That's a 17 minute flight...I wouldn't pay $40 to fly that...so hopefully I can find a friend that is willing to make a few $$ and drive my car to the airport and pick me up:)!! (There are also plenty of COS-DEN shuttle companies that I could take as well).
More on this "Around the World Trip" as it gets closer...I've actually just got a flight itinerary for a trip before that one. The next IronKids race is in Atlanta on August 19th...I'm flying down to ATL on Friday night (the 17th) and back to the Springs on Sunday night (the 19th). Just a quick jaunt across the country...but for a great cause, of course! Thanks Neil, J-Net, Tom and Sara Lee for letting me be a part of this great event series!