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day 1- Pacific City, Oregon to John Day, Oregon |
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i call this photo 'cute-as-a-button'. doesn't he look cute in his professional leathers and teenie little scooter? day break, day 1 |
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here we have the first picture of the race. as you can see, i wasn't quite awake yet. why, you ask? well, because as much as i love noe, he snores and he should have warned us. then there is the fact it is like 5 am or something dumb-ass like that. |
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getting better...waking up.... |
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| we have achieved enough cognitive functioning to take a picture....it's going to be a good day |
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here we have the start finish line. as you can see, it wasn't terribly organized. certainly not the tour de france or indy 500. i didn't hear anyone say 'go!' or a gun shot (cannon fire was last night), so i am not sure how it actually did start. maybe if it had been warmer and i'd gotten out of the car...
the guy with the cigarette is rolf. rolf is cool. on the first day patrick passed him 3 times as rolf stood by the side of the road for a cigarette break. that isn't the only reason he is cool though. he is THE vespa guy. he goes around the vespa dealerships and teaches the mechanics how it is done. he turned pretty old years wise just before the race. but he took the ride as well as any youngin' on the ride (youngest was 23) |
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the reason for sharing this picture is the boat. who gets up at god-awful hour on a sunday? boaters and cannonballers, that's who.
(i was thinking this would be more profound when i took the picture. not really working out as i had planned) |
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patrick's mom, sisters, nieces and nephews live in monmouth, oregon. monmouth just happened to be a city that the ride went through...
(even the racing stripes on the sign are the same as the unstealth, how cool is that?) |
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the story i heard was patrick was in a real hurry to keep going and kept looking over his shoulder while hanging with the family. it was the first day after all. i came about the gang about an hour later. they had bagels and juice for all the racers and cheered anytime any scooter went by. very cool! thank you family support team! | ||
| the original plan was to meet, each day, at the half way point for lunch and fuel fill-up. that didn't end up working out as our fuel mileage was not as good as we had calculated. we did meet for lunch the first day though...in, um, some small city in oregon who's name escapes me right now... |  |
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| if you are reading this website, you know about my shoe addiction (better than heroin!) (if not go to my shoe page and it will become apparent...still better than a heroine addiction). well, along 20 in oregon is a shoe tree. i am driving along singing off-tune at the top of my lungs, i was alone in the car on day 1, and all of a sudden... |  |
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so i come to a screeching halt on the opposite side of the road, hands on the steering wheel still and say to myself (out loud of course, there was no one else in the car) 'omg! was that a shoe tree?!' jump out, look both ways, cross the road and take a picture of the oregon shoe tree. the sign says 'a bearing tree no cherries or peaches, just a few pair'. ha ha. isn't that cute. |
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after the shoe
tree it was just land... |
yep, it is going to be a long week... |
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i gave my first of only 3 massages in john daly, oregon. plan was to give one to patrick and one to another racer each night. but it took me WAY longer to get from city to city than planned. oh well. ( i did give patrick and number of massages, though not as many as he wanted i think).
day 1 was the only day we stayed in the same state. every other day started in one state and ended in another. on day 6 we went all the way through illinois without stopping!
the other entertaining thing about john daly was that patrick and i went for ice cream at the dairy queen and these two pre-teen boys told me they liked my hair. i was dismayed. i had hoped to leave a trail of bewildered and then relieved innocents along the route. 'did you see that pink-haired girl? good thing she moved along....'
oh, we came in 2nd in our class and 16th overall on day 1. this was because we ran out of gas leaving a jackass harley rider in the dust through the corners (he spit on us the asshole!)
