Carolina Cup: A Day At The Races

This past Saturday was the 80th running of the Carolina Cup horse races in Camden, SC.  We started off the day by gathering at my family's lakehouse which is a short drive from the track.

After consolidating into one car, all six of us made our way in and met up with my family.  They have had a spot at the Cup for as long as I can remember.  Ian even commented on Saturday morning that he thinks my parents would attend the Cup with a tornado watch in progress.  He is right.  They would say, "Well, that's why we bought a tent, honey!"



The guys: Casey, T, Ian, Cass, Dad




The gals: Lindsay, Kim, Mom, Laura, me

  The Cup is the perfect excuse to bring all of your favorite tailgating food.  We had Bojangle's fried chicken, devilled eggs, pasta salad, brownies, a veggie tray, hummus and pita chips, and macarons.

And of course we had lots of fun things to drink -- we started with mimosas.

Without fail, my friend Mary Margaret always finds me at Cup.  She is in my ADPi "family" -- she is my grandlittle.  Basically, she's the "little sis" of my "little sis" ... confused yet?

The first race started at 1:30, so we placed our bets on our horses and made our way to the rail.

And after each race, we went back to our tailgating area and waited for the next running.

After a while, I headed over with the girls to the area known as College Park.  Basically, the set-up of the event is like a big donut, with the actual donut being the race track.  The inside of the donut, or "infield", is where you tailgate if you are a) past the age of 22, b) not drinking any sort of punch scooped out of a large trashcan or cooler, and c) not planning to fall on your face during the day.

So you can deduce that College Park, where fraternities bus down oodles of people looking to be buzzed by 8:30am, is one. hell. of. a. hot. MESS.

So of course we had to see it in all its glory.

So we looked around in disgust and left promptly.

NOPE!

We partied with the college students - duh!

Danced on coolers and pretended like we were 18 again.

And then we went back to our husbands and told them they weren't missing a thing at that disgusting excuse for a proper tailgate.

Once it was time to bid our farewell to the racetrack, we headed back to the lakehouse with a very important mission:

GET COMFY.

After a long day of wedges, dirt, tight sundresses, and a smidge of sunburn, it felt so good to change clothes and just relax.

The guys tossed a frisbee and we girls just chatted and recounted the hilarity of College Park.  We all had dinner at the picnic table on the screened porch together.

And the guys sat on the porch of our cabin and talked about the good ol' days.

Once again, another awesome year at the races.