Appalachian Adventure Racing Camp
Copyright© 2025 by Canairs90s
Scene 18 — Lindsey
Cal’s comment was kind of odd to Lindsey, she wondered if he was just being overly complimentary now that they’d been intimate for some reason. She hoped he wasn’t going to change.
Bailey was the only one already downstairs when they got there. She was in the kitchen refilling her water bottle. Her blonde hair was up in a wet bun, having just gotten done with her shower.
“Hey guys,” she greeted Cal and Lindsey, “Congrats on another win, you mocking us wearing those shorts again, Linds? You guys got some new plan to trick us?”
“Ha, I actually didn’t think about that,” Lindsey answered. “To be honest, I’m just running out of clean clothes to wear.”
“Yeah, I feel you girl. Cara is upstairs seeing if we can salvage our dresses, I’m on lunch duty,” Bailey said. “Care to join?”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Cal said, and the trio began making sandwiches.
“Speaking of tricks, as I recall you ladies were in gym clothes at the start of the last challenge, yet showed up at the restaurant less than 5 minutes after us in dresses. How’d you pull that off and get there so quickly?” Cal asked.
“We thought that Pierre’s little sign off line at the end of the game this morning could be some kind of hint about needing to meet a dress code, I imagine based on how you guys were dressed you were thinking the same. We didn’t see how we could get to town quickly and still be presentable so we decided we wouldn’t worry about that and just figure it out once we got to town. From the map it was pretty obvious the fastest route was cross country, so that’s what we did,” Bailey said.
“Hey Bae, hi guys,” Cara greeted them as she came down the stairs. “Filling them in on our misadventures?” she asked Bailey.
“Yeah, how are the dresses doing?” Bailey responded. “Sandwiches are ready if you want to eat.”
“Thanks, I’m starving,” Cara said, grabbing a plate. “I think my dress will be ok since the pattern wasn’t too prominent. It might be a little darker burgundy but it already was dark colored anyway. I’m not sure on yours, the black part obviously washed out fine but the white stripes are kind of weird looking right now, we’ll see how it dries.”
The four of them sat at the table and began to eat.
“I’m so confused right now,” Lindsey said. “Based on what I just went through to get back there’s no way to get across those fields and stay clean, even if you move carefully. Not to mention, how the heck did you get a dress?”
“Uh, we bought it. I hid a credit card in my bra,” Cara explained, chuckling.
“Is that allowed?” Lindsey replied.
“No idea! We didn’t ask and they didn’t check,” Cara answered with a grin on her face.
“Well fair play to you then, never thought of that possibility. I think it’s pretty cool how many ways to accomplish the objectives in these contests there are. I’m pretty sure in all 3 challenges all 4 teams have taken different approaches to accomplishing the same goal,” Lindsey said. “How was it getting across those fields at the start? Our chase was kind of manic so I have no idea if we even took the fastest route; we just assumed that we had to chase down Stefan and Annie and followed them for most of it.”
“Phew, it wasn’t particularly pleasant, I’ll tell you that. Honestly, when we saw you all crossing back that way we almost threw in the towel but our competitive side won out. You know how you guys climbed over that embankment a couple hundred yards south of the main entrance?” Bailey said.
Cal and Lindsey nodded, both wondering how Bailey knew.
“So that field you crossed was recently planted and pretty easy to cross, but opposite the entrance to the camp is like this bog of just nasty knee deep mud, I think it’s runoff from the stream or something, I’m not sure. But anyway, we charged out of camp at the start and Annie and Stefan are right with us, so we were kind of racing them instead of doing the smart thing and looking for the best route. So we just went on the most direct path to town and leapt down the embankment into all that and were immediately pretty much covered in mud.” Bailey said, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the memory.
“Wait, ok, trying to work this out,” Cal interjected, “first, how far behind us were y’all? Also, I know y’all bought new clothes but Annie and Stefan didn’t unless they bought identical clothes, what did they do?”
“Oh, we were actually pretty close behind you,” Cara said, “we used the tree branch you guys left and got up about when you crossed the finish line. We just didn’t sprint out the last part because we knew we couldn’t catch either team and the bros were nowhere to be seen.”
As if on cue, Dillon and Tommy burst through the front door. They were sweat-soaked and looked exhausted.
“Fuck this fucking game!” Tommy shouted, “Damn racket, pretend to be a race and they put all kinds of bullshit obstacles that make no sense!”
“Whoa, what happened to you boys?” Lindsey asked, trying not to sound smug.
“We ran to that freaking restaurant, but they wouldn’t seat us because we ‘didn’t meet the dress code’ sorry but we’re really frustrated,” explained Dillon. “Then we run all the way back here to change and find out we finished freaking last again, it’s BS!”
“Whoa, that was like 6 or 7 miles to town right?” Lindsey said. “So you just ran like a half marathon for nothing, that sucks.” She tried not to smirk and mostly succeeded, she thought.
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