How fun!

BaT Auction Success Story: Family Adventures in a 2003 Volkswagen Eurovan Weekender

candybowl

What a great dog. Very sadly no longer with us. I made an 11×17 calendar of him in PDF format you can see at this link. If you are interested in getting your own printed copy, let me know (you can download and print yourself too, np – but note the file is 130mb, so pretty big due to the oversized images). Printing it like I did costs about $35 all told at Kinko’s – which is why I could only afford to do one for Dawniel – if you see her anytime soon, check it out in person – it came out really cool, actually.

B, RIP – you were one of a kind.

candybowl

Given the immediately previous post, gotta have the Tom Hanks Syncro trip in there too! I actually have one of these, although mine isn’t a camper like Tom’s….but i have definitely had the ‘weird breakdowns’ adventure multiple times. Here, he simply puts off getting gas…..doh!

candybowl

Just got back late this afternoon from this year’s Bike MS event (WA ride – there are others nationwide at varying times throughout the year). This is the first ‘big’ bike ride we’ve done – I haven’t done STP (yet – it’s still in the cards someday though) nor RSVP (may get to this one first as we have friends who already do this ride) and the last couple walking events we did (Vancouver Sun Run, Seattle Half-Marathon) were also many years ago now. So it was interesting to be a part of a big event like this – they estimated about 3,000 bikers were going to take part overall, and I believe it.

Bike MS is a bit different than STP or RSVP – it’s not competitive, nor timed (unless you handle that) it’s to raise money to cure the disease Multiple Sclerosis. Teams of varying size – and corporate sponsorship in many cases – raise as much money as they can prior to and during the ride, all counting towards an overall goal (apparently this years’ is $1.6M, of which they had raised about $1.12M as of last night’s announcement while we were there).

We took the day off work Friday and got there around 11 am and as there was almost no one there (participant-wise) yet, we parked the van in our camping spot and helped some of the volunteer staff – I worked in the ‘bike corral’ helping store people’s very expensive bikes – kerewin helped at the registration desk. Our team started showing up mid-to-late afternoon, some not until that night due to getting off work – apparently the traffic from Seattle was its usual jam-up funfest.

The first riding day, Saturday, we did the 59-mile route – there are longer and shorter but we felt that was the best one for our ability. Saturday started out with a minor threat of rain but went from overcast early on to sunny by late am – ended up with a few minor sunburns but nothing major. Great conditions for a ride, good mix of hills although the course is mostly pretty flat.

The second day (today) we did the 50-mile route, which is even more flat – but, it rained about 2/3 of the ride today. And was pretty breezy/windy the whole time (especially at the end). Today’s route was a bit tougher mentally, even though otherwise a faster ride – plus, we were still a bit tired from the previous day. Got home around 4pm, no traffic coming back – always a nice experience around here. 🙂

To sum up, a great event, great teammates (for some of whom this was their first ride too) and a good time had by all – no injuries, only one notable malfunction (someone today had flats at two different times, and a crank that persisted in coming loose multiple times, so he had to bail on the ride about halfway to avoid something bad happening).

Thanks to everyone who sponsored us, and for hopefully defeating this disease!

candybowl

So besides the jet boat trip in July, so far we have attended two family reunions (the first was in Medford – the jet boat trip was the first event; the second was last weekend in Manzanita– somewhat interrupted by rain, unfortunately).

After the second reunion, we drove the Syncro up the coast and camped at 3 different locations: Cape Disappointment (just north of Astoria but on WA side); Grayland (mid-coast, about 25 miles south of Aberdeen); and Heart ‘O The Hills (just below Hurricane Ridge outside Port Angeles). In the first two cases, the weather was overcast, breezy and somewhat wet – typical for this time (and nearly every other time) of year. The last site was much warmer and dryer, but also came with more bugs – doh!

We got in some good biking too. In Medford, we took a couple rides – a ~30 miler roundtrip to the outskirts of nearby Ashland; a second one about 14 miles RT (bike problems prevented more). This past week, we took a ~42mi ride around the Long Beach Peninsula; some short rides near Grayland (one with about 50lb of ice and food on my back!); and a 6 mile ride down (from the campground to Port Angeles) and then back UP (this was the bad part). But we made it, and were better for it in the end.

Sat. am the 14th we packed up and drove to Hurricane Ridge, then hiked the 1.6mi ‘hurricane hill’ hike to overlook the Strait of Juan de Fuca (between the northwest WA coast and Vancouver Island/Canada), then back to the van and blast on home. Got home around 3pm and it was HOT back here in Seattle! And now the Syncro needs a good can or two of Woolite. 🙂

candybowl