Day 3
Clovis, CA
Clovis! Time for the biggest street vault in America. I didn't really know any of the vaulters except Tommy, but I introduced myself to Kira Costa, a member of my website, and had a good time just hanging out.
Recognize this guy from Neo Vault?
Mel Mueller, one of the top female vaulters in the world.
Kira Costa set the girls National HS record this year, and took time out of her warmups to sign autographs and pose for pictures.
I made Zack eat my rice from my teriyaki. He didn't like the chopsticks very much.
One of Fraley's girls.
Kira's fan club!
Kira easily clears a bar.
Amy Chow, 1996 Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast, is now a pole vaulter!
Even llamas like watching pole vaulting!
Adam Keul
I think this was one of the development vaulters.
National High School Record holder Tommy Skipper.
Dave Moore
John Besmer, also of Neo Vault fame.
Dana Ellis, soon to be Mrs. Russ Buller!
Mel Mueller
Sean Brown, the man behind Neo Vault. It's hard to find him without a video camera glued to his face.
Dana again. She came all the way down from Canada to jump at Clovis. And by Canada I mean LA ;)
Pole vault supermodel Russ Buller. This picture shows how much my camera sucks at taking pictures at night!
Zack says: We went over to Clovis for the California-I mean North American Pole Vault Championships and hung out for a while during warm-ups and finally the vaulting started. They started a little low and ran a split bar so it seemed like the whole competition took a long time. Russ Buller and Scott Slover had to wait forever until it was high enough to start. It was still some good jumping and a good comp. There was a pretty big crowd there and everybody watching seemed to really be into it. It was cool seeing how many kids went up to all the vaulters asking for autographs. This comp. definitely helps expose a lot of people to pole vaulting. Soooo the comp. ended and we headed back to the hotel for the uh post competition festivites. I'd never met John Besmer before but he was awesome and made sure everybody was having a good time as well as providing much of the evening's comic relief and sacrificing his hotel room. We met a bunch of people there and BS'd with them. Since we had a looooong drive ahead of us the next day we didn't want to be out too late but the fun patrol decided we were having too much fun and rained on our parade anyways.
Day 4 - Clovis, CA to Grants, NM
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