San Jose 2018 Travel Log: Happy New Year!

Mirai Nagasu skates her way to gold.
January 2008 (the last time I attended a
US National Championship)

Good first evening of 2018! I'm sitting here in my lovely hotel room in Anchorage trying to get ready to fall asleep so that I can be somewhat rested when I head to the airport at 4 am tomorrow. Yeah, this night owl isn't all that thrilled with when I'm heading out, but it is what it is. This way I get down to San Jose near check in time for the hotel. Depending on how I'm feeling I'll attend a few events at the arena, though I just found out about San Jose's "Christmas at the Park" which is going on through the 7th and I may skip some of the skating to check that out as it's free and it's CHRISTMAS!

I'm fighting off a cold, I'm not sure who is winning. I've been best friends with Cold-eeze since Sunday. Hopefully I can keep it at bay. It seems to be a new theme of mine: get sick to start my trips. Ugh! I absolutely hate feeling run down before the fun has even started.

I will try to check in as best I can while on my trip, but we all know I'm horrible at trip reports during as well as after anything. Trying to be better. Make sure to follow me on twitter and instagram as I have a feeling that may be where I do most of my "real time" posts.

Good night! I'll see you all in San Jose!

USFS "Preview" - Championship Ladies

Many thanks to Syliva at Unseen Skaters for the unofficial roster.

Starr Andrews  Short Program / Free Program

Mariah Bell   Short Program / Free Program

Emily Chan  Short Program / Free Program

Karen Chen  Short Program / Free Program

Franchesca Chiera  Short Program / Free Program

Polina Edmunds  Short Program / Free Program

Amber Glenn  Short Program / Free Program

Courtney Hicks  Short Program / Free Program

Tessa Hong  Short Program / Free Program

Vivian Le  Short Program / Free Program

Ashley Lin  Short Program / Free Program

Emmy Ma  Short Program / Free Program

Katie McBeath  Short Program / Free Program

Brynne McIsaac   Short Program / Free Program

Hannah Miller  Short Program / Free Program

Mirai Nagasu  Short Program / Free Program

Kaitlyn Nguyen  Short Program / Free Program

Bradie Tennell  Short Program / Free Program

Ashley Wagner  Short Program / Free Program

Angela Wang  Short Program / Free Program

Megan Wessenberg  Short Program / Free Program

Caroline Zhang  Short Program / Free Program

USFS "Preview" - Championship Men

Many thanks to Sylvia at Unseen Skaters for the unofficial roster.

Max Aaron Short Program / Free Program

Jason Brown Short Program / Free Program

Nathan Chen Short Program / Free Program

Timothy Dolensky Short Program / Free Program

Scott Dyer Short Program / Free Program

Tomoki Hiwatashi Short Program / Free Program

Grant Hochstein Short Program / Free Program

Benjamin Jalovick Short Program / Free Program

Alexander Johnson Short Program / Free Program

Alexei Krasnozhon Short Program / Free Program

Daniel Kulenkamp Short Program / Free Program

Jimmy Ma Short Program / Free Program

Ross Miner Short Program / Free Program

Jordan Moeller Short Program / Free Program

Sebastien Payannet Short Program / Free Program

Sean Rabbitt Short Program / Free Program

Adam Rippon Short Program / Free Program

Emmanuel Savary Short Program / Free Program

Kevin Shum Short Program / Free Program

Andrew Torgashev Short Program / Free Program

Vincent Zhou Short Program / Free Program

USFS "Preview" - Championship Pairs Teams

Thanks to Sylvia at Unseen Skaters for the unofficial roster.

Ashley Cain/Timothy LeDuc Short Program / Long Program

Jessica Calalang/Zack Sidhu Short Program / Long Program

Marissa Castelli/Mervin Tran Short Program / Long Program

Winter Deardorff/Max Settlage Short Program / Long Program

Haven Denney/Brandon Frazier Short Program / Long Program

Nica Digerness/Danny Neudecker Short Program / Long Program

Jade Esposito/Rique Newby-Estrella Short Program / Long Program

Caitlin Fields/Ernie Utah Stevens Short Program / Long Program

Tarah Kayne/Danny O’Shea Short Program / Long Program

Chelsea Liu/Brian Johnson Short Program / Long Program

Jessica Pfund/Joshua Santillan Short Program / Long Program

Alexa Scimeca-Knierim/Chris Knierim Short Program / Long Program

Erika Smith/AJ Reiss Short Program / Long Program

Deanna Stellato-Dudek/Nathan Bartholomay Short Program / Long Program

Allison Timlen/Justin Highgate-Brutman Short Program / Long Program

Alexandria Yao/Jacob Simon Short Program / Long Program

USFS "Preview" - Championship Dance Teams

This is basically for me, I'm one of those that likes to be familiar with what I'm going to see. I'm getting super excited for this trip, and this is keeping me from going insane waiting until it's closer to time to pack... I mean I *could* pack now for Disney but I'd rather wait until about a week out to pull out the suitcases.

Many thanks to Sylvia at Unseen Skaters for compiling the list. This is not the official roster, but it's all we have.

Alexandra Aldridge/Daniel Eaton Short Dance / Free Dance

Ashley Bain/Oleg Altukhov Short Dance / Free Dance

Julia Biechler/Damian Dodge Short Dance / Free Dance

Madison Chock/Evan Bates Short Dance / Free Dance

Kaitlin Hawayek/Jean-Luc Baker Short Dance / Free Dance

Madison Hubbell/Zachary Donohue Short Dance / Free Dance

Cassidy Klopstock/Jacob Schedl Short Dance / Free Dance

Karina Manta/Joseph Johnson Short Dance / Free Dance

Lorraine McNamara/Quinn Carpenter Short Dance / Free Dance

Rachel Parsons/Michael Parsons Short Dance / Free Dance

Elliana Pogrebinsky/Alex Benoit Short Dance / Free Dance

Elicia Reynolds/Stephen Reynolds Short Dance / Free Dance

Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani Short Dance / Free Dance

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Hopefully that little earworm is making its happy little home in your head right now. It's been stuck in mine for months. Why? Because I made the decision early this year that I would attend the 2018 US Figure Skating National Championships hosted this year in San Jose, CA.

I know, you're confused. For over five years, this blog has been mainly mushing/Iditarod news and Alaska photography. I've not given up on my second favorite sport, I just haven't followed as I used to (thanks to NBC having the two worst commentators EVER on the mics these days). Niche sports are hard to follow, and others follow skating better, so I focus on mushing.

But! Instead of sitting on my butt all weekend refreshing the GPS tracker for the first race of the season in January, I'll be sitting in an arena hanging out with friends and cheering on the skaters trying to make Team USA. I haven't been to a championship (or any skating event) in ten years! I haven't seen some of my friends in ten years. I cannot WAIT for this trip!

While I'll really only be there for the senior skating events (the championship begins in December, but I just couldn't swing that), I'll be gone from January 1-13 (of course if I'm in California I've gotta visit Disney, too!). I'm working on itineraries and everything. I'm so out of the loop as to what these competitions are like. Waiting for the practice schedule to come out. Have we always had to wait this late for info?! Ugh!

But so far, here's what I have.

January 1, 2018
Drive up to Anchorage @ 8:00am

January 2, 2018
Fly out @ 6:45am
Land in Seattle @ 11:21am (10:21am AKST)
Leave Seattle @ 1:00pm (Noon AKST)
Land in San Jose @ 3:14pm (2:14pm AKST)

*Possibly attending the Junior Ladies Free Skate @ 7:15pm (6:15pm AKST)

January 3, 2018
Junior Men Free Skate @ 10:15am (9:15am AKST)
Senior Ladies Short Probram @ 6:00pm (5:00pm AKST)

January 4, 2018
Junior Free Dance @ 10:00am (9:00am AKST)
Senior Pairs Short Program @ 12:50pm (11:50am AKST)
Senior Men Short Program @ 5:30pm (4:30pm AKST)

January 5, 2018
Senior Ice Dance Short Dance @ 1:10pm (12:10pm AKST)
Senior Ladies Free Skate @ 3:45pm (2:45pm AKST)

January 6, 2018
Senior Pairs Free Skate @ 11:45am (10:45am AKST)
Senior Mens Free Skate @ 3:45pm (2:45pm AKST)

January 7, 2018
Senior Ice Dance Free Dance @ 12:30pm (11:30am AKST)

Fly out @ 7:07pm (6:06pm AKST)


My hotel is supposed to have wifi, so maybe I'll check in... but we all know I most likely won't blog much - so follow me on twitter for anything I might say about the competition (if you're so inclined).