Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic

We did the STP and it was very, very fun. We started about 5:00 am; 16 hours-- and three gallons of Gatorade as well as several bananas, sandwiches, and nectarines (each)-- we arrived in Portland. The whole package-- starting with the 50 mile training ride that killed us in February and including several tons of spaghetti, several pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and many, many Gatorade stops at Shell stations across the greater Seattle area-- was wonderful. Here's a photograph we bought from the race organizers; we're so jolly because we're about to end our ride on the world's roughest road (you can see the seam in the asphalt right in front of Scott's wheel).

Thank you so very much to the family and friends who watched Susanna for us both on the weekend of the event and on the many rides that led up to it. And thanks to Scott without whom I would probably not have done it.

The Oregon Coast

Last week we went camping on the Oregon coast with some family. We started at Silver Falls near Salem and moved south, finishing at Sunset Bay and had a splendid time. We went to the beach a few times spending a total of about fifteen minutes building sand castles, keeping the kids from getting swept out to sea in the powerful waves, and trying to avoid getting sand blown in our eyes. We biked on the beautiful oregon coast bikeway-- beautiful even though Scott and I missed the bikeway signs that led to the best part. We spend time with our fun and funny family. Susanna's cousin Ben won her (and me) over by riding by on his new training-wheel-free bicycle every twenty minutes that we were in camp, just to say hi to her; and probably Susanna's favorite part of the trip was listening to her cousins indulge her by singing her favorite song-- Raffi's "Baby Beluga"-- while Scott and I fished through some nearby thornbushes with a piece of Brad and Sue's tent trailer, hoping to find a piece of our tent Scott somehow inadvertantly flung there (I think we gave up and used a stick for the night but found the real piece the next morning-- did I mention the original search was performed by headlamp?). And I can't skip over the tidepools: a beautiful surf, starfish and anenome everywhere, and lots of space to run and splash.