June 22, 2010
cascade route
I've done the Seattle to SF trip a few times now--
Via the coast. Via the volcanic high desert of Oregon just east of the Cascade Crest.
And recently just west of the Cascade Crest.
Amazingly most of the roads along my route are paved--a legacy of the FS having lots of money in the logging heyday. Even though most roads in WA are not paved. I guess the connections were more useful in OR?
A bunch of the trip was without a good map, very unusual and unsettling for me. Once I got to Oakridge, the ranger station was very helpful... but I didn't buy a map because I don't want more stuff I'll look at once, but should have. The ridge road road from Oakridge to Steamboat was open and clear, but the last few miles were clearly little used. Because the road down the ridge was closed, so I went back and guessed at a road. It had some snow on it.
It looked crossable downhill, but if the road on the other side went nowhere... I'd be stuck. And had only seen one car in the previous 3 hours, someone going the other way who was lost. Thankfully right at that time a pickup went flying by on the cross road, so I decided it was probably OK and went through. From there down was uneventful.
June 07, 2010
Kinetic Sculpture Race 2010
This year I had the privilege to actually race in the Kinetic Grand Championship as part of the Visualize Whirled Peas team. We didn't ACE but completed the race quite well with 1 barnacle and 4 pilots switching off in 2 pilot spots.
We made the front page of the Sunday Times... standard of Eureka.
I didn't take many pictures, but here are some of them. Also some unedited video from day 2 and day 3. There were professionals taking video from deadman's drop from day 1, but I haven't found it yet online, I'd like to.
Here are pictures of the race from Mike Ransom, who built the vehicle.
Update: GPS track viewed in Strava.
