Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

Last weekend, as our previous post reported, Michelle and I participated in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life in Baytown, Texas. Michelle and I raised $450 through online donations, and our team raised a total of $2983.63 online. We then raised some money at the event (despite the weather), to bring our team total to $3564.63. Thank you all so much for your support!

The event itself was…exciting. It started off well, we were in costume by the start of event, the Survivor’s Lap, and were working the crowd and our booth like the seasoned pro’s we are. Then the weather came. It started with a light sprinkle, which I didn’t worry about because my head was covered by a waterproof helmet, and I was sweaty anyway (sorry, TMI?). Then the wind and rain started coming a little harder. We had to shut down our photo processing (we were taking pictures on our green screen and printing them out in return for donations), and the “arrests” came to a halt as people scrambled for cover.

Then the weather unleashed its worst. It was raining really hard, the wind was whipping around pretty badly, and the parking lot that the event was held in turned into a small river. We finished enclosing our tent to provide more room for us to move around, and the tent held up. I was very impressed with this tent that Sam brought. Most of us stayed in our armor through the whole ordeal. I figured that I was already soaking wet, if I changed while it was still raining, I would just get my only set of dry clothes wet. Besides, it’s still fun just standing around in armor with comrades.

At one point, Michelle started worrying about our car. You see, we brought her new Camry, instead of bringing the Suburban. Did I mention that we had parked in a field? Yeah… So she grabbed our umbrella and went to check on the car. Luckily it was fine, but the field we parked in was surrounded by a growing mote of water. Fearing that we wouldn’t be able to get out if she didn’t act soon, she cautiously moved the Camry through a shallow part in the mote to higher ground. I’m glad she did. It worked out well for us. The car is fine.

At about 10:30 Michelle and I decided to pack up and leave. The rain had let up a bit, and our gadgets were telling us another band of storms was on its way. So we loaded up, and I, having shed my armor but left only wearing my under armor, drove us around the flooded streets while Michelle navigated. The feeder roads were flooded most of the way home, but the flooding wasn’t that bad near our neighborhood.

We, the 501st, have decided to not do this same event next year, since the novelty has kind of worn off. We had a lot of fun the past 2 years at this event. We are looking at some more options for charity fundraising events in the future, maybe another location’s Relay for Life?

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the event. We didn’t take any of them, so consider them “borrowed” from our friends in the 501st.

-Travis