Spelling Bee

Well, even though it continued to snow throughout the day, the spelling bee went on as scheduled. Tamara and I headed over to the local school auditorium just in time to be there for the start time of 6:30. We made a stop along the way to stop at our stores to pick up some props for the event to be worn by our team – “Beer Goggles” (which are sunglasses with the eyepieces in the shape of beer mugs), beer mugs with bicycle bells attached to them (the bells are to “Ring for another Round) and can become quite obnoxious if over used, and T-Shirts with a beer theme on them. The beer props were to emphasize our team name of O’Brien’s BEErs.

When we arrived, our third team member, Brandy (Brady and Beer?), was waiting for us. We changed into our Beer regalia just as the MC for the evening was instructing everyone to take their seats so the Bee could get under way. The competition was divided into four rounds, with each round having four or five teams per round. As the rules mentioned in the previous blog entry outlined, the teams were able to consult with each other for up to 30 seconds to come up with the believed correct spelling. O’Brien’s Beer team was on the program to be in the second round – thank Gawd! At least we got to observe the first round to allow us to get a feel for the ground rules. The teams were allowed 2 misspellings before being eliminated. The first round of 5 teams were fairly good spellers, and the round went for about 45 minutes. We thought if each round went as long we would be there until midnight.

Finally the first round concluded and O’Brien’s BEErs took the position of the third team on the stage. I immediately started ringing the bell on my beer mug and acting the fool as I often do in front of a crowd. This is a carry over from when Tamara and I are involved with the Hash House Harriers (This group will be explained in a future blog). I was chastised for my behavior by Tamara because we were in the school auditorium and there were a few students in the audience. Being this was an adult event, my thoughts were that I could act like an adult – no matter how immature! Anyway, the contest commenced and it was quite fun. To our relief we were the second team eliminated and the round was soon over in a matter of about 15 minutes. We took our seats in the audience, but about half way through the third round we had seen enough and felt we had lived up to our commitment. So at the end of the third round as the new teams were taking the stage we made a hasty retreat to the back of the auditorium to make our escape through the back door.

Once outside it was evident that the wet snow that had been falling earlier had now frozen into a slick crust on the sidewalks and streets. We had to force open the doors of the Ford Expedition as the earlier melted snow has frozen in the doors’ seams. I was able to get inside one of the doors and force the others open from the inside. Ah, life in the mountains. We slowly made our way home in 4-wheel drive, but not before making a visit to the local Ouray Liquor Store and picking up a couple of six packs of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, our beer of choice since forever. We made it back home, opened up a couple of Sierras and toasted to each other for making it through the evening’s events and vowing to take a pass if asked to participate at the 3rd Annual Spelling Bee in 2010. Maybe we’ll just make a donation to the cause. It’s less time consuming, I thought to myself as I consumed the cold Sierra Nevada.