Turns out the Joplin Color Run was JV compared to the KC Color Run’s varsity team. Backstory: my wife has Type 1 Diabetes and has been kicking its tail with this running stuff.

We got there, and this was the line for the porta-potty. I put down water faster than most waiters can bring it out, so I was ready for the portapotty.

Line for portapotty:

Who put that in black and white?

This is a COLOR run, people! Speaking of people, and weird people at that…

So there was… that. And there was chaos at the start with the squirt gun thingies. For one, dude tried to nail our camera:

Not cool. Actually, he was a really cool dude in the end, he was just messing with me, but later on he let me snap a shot of his hands after he finished all of that squirting:

Which amounted to this:

All of that squirting and chaos and random explosions of color like someone gave psychodelic drugs to the flak cannon operators…. It was nuts.

Kiddo and her friend from the last run took off at the start.

I yelled at my friend… we need a good pseudonym for him to protect his privacy… Tate?

Tate.

Yelled at my friend Tate, “Lessgo!”

He was snapping as quick as me and we caught these:

And really?

We couldn’t find an easy cross point like I did with the last one.

See, at the last one, we were on a private cross-country course that enabled me to catch Kiddo around nearly every bend. Harder to do that when you’re running around the parking lot of the Chiefs’ and Royals’ stadiums. Yes, they share a parking lot. Weird, I know. Maybe that’s why both teams do so poorly year-in, year-out? When they park their cars, no one in Kansas City’s knows whether they’re going to a football game or a baseball game.

I kid. I kid.

Eventually, we found a cross-section with the blue station.

And.

It.

Was.

CHAOS!

In the middle of this constant stream of snapping, this lady comes up to me and starts saying, “Oh yeah, honey, oh yeah, I’ll work it. Take my picture, baby.”

So I obliged.

She kept posing for long after I quit and I just laughed at her. She was making fun of me.

And I thought it was great.

And she laughed too and left.

The end of the race looked thusly:

Best part for me?

This guy had no clue that he was about to take the most epic bite of sandwich the world has ever seen:

Yup.

All-in-all, it was a total win and we had a blast. Here’s Kiddo’s hands:

You may be wondering how they clean that mess up?

With leaf blowers:

And street sweepers:

On the way out, we ate at Succotash (mentioned in an earlier post) covered in color and then we saw this simple sign:

Dear Brooklyn,

We might not see you as soon as I’d like, but we will see you sooner or later.

We’re coming. Be ready for us, because we’re ready for you. More ready every day.

Love,