John’s Ramblings

At times like these I come to understand that writing about some things I’ve done is harder than the actual “doing”. It’s been 9 days since I completed the 2007 edition of RAW, but I have yet to put fingers to keyboard. Much happens while you are riding your bicycle for a week, thus the size of the task becomes a bit daunting. It would have been way easier if I could have typed up a daily recap as the trip progressed, but a laptop computer wasn’t on my list of recommended items to pack. I did bring a crude stone-age version instead, but the one-handed interface, lack of a back-lit screen, and in-camp wine-tastings quashed my attempts at journaling. Therefore I shall attempt to reconstruct events for you using my assembled artifacts and my foggy memory.

Day 0, Seattle to Raymond
(or, the wheels on the bus…)

Having done all my packing the night before, I woke up at a reasonable hour on Saturday. First order of business was to brew coffee. This would be required in order to complete step two, waking my chauffeur bright-and-early on a Saturday morning. Terri’s favorite thing on the weekend is being able to sleep in, so placing a steaming mug of said liquid on her bedside table provides a gentle enticement for her to leave the comfort of bed.

The drive to Seattle was (thankfully) uneventful, and we arrived at the appointed loading area well within the allotted timeframe (I am compulsively early). Packet pick-up was not to happen until we arrived in Raymond, so the only tasks to be performed here were:

• Load your 2 duffel bags onto the baggage truck.
• Load your folding chair on the other baggage truck (because chairs and duffel bags do not play nice, apparently).
• Hand your bicycle over to the volunteers standing inside a moving van, and watch it disappear into the shadows.
• Load yourself onto one of the 4 waiting buses.

Having accomplished all said activities within about 10 minutes, I proceeded directly to the sitting around waiting-to-leave activity. The bus rolled out on time, and between the book I was reading and a small nap I was arriving in Raymond in fairly short order. The next couple of hours were spent gathering my baggage, retrieving my bike from the moving van, and setting up my tent on a baseball field with 199 other people. Fellow Use It or Lose It rider Russ became my guide to the subtleties of selecting your tent-site. The key to good RAW campsite selection is to select a site that is:

• far enough away from the food and shower truck that the noise of the generator and refrigeration units do not disturb your sleep,
• far enough away from the sani-cans that the occasional door-slam will not wake you,
• not so far away from the sani-cans that a pre-dawn pee-run does not require that you eat a Clif-Bar to refuel before you head back to your tent,
• out of the main flow-of-traffic to-and-from said sani-cans,
• out of the main cluster of snoring campers, yet not completely on the outside edge of the campsite. If someone is going to be eaten by a bear or violated by a geoduck, I’m sure these campers on the fringe are far more favorable targets for predatory animals.

Once we had set up camp, Russ and I ventured to beautiful downtown Raymond to partake in the Raymond Centennial Celebration. We ate a tasteless cheeseburger at a restored car show, then walked four blocks North so we could see the same cars being driven through town. The highlight of our stay in Raymond was the delicious salmon dinner being served as a fundraiser for the local fire department. The main course was accompanied by corn-on-the-cob, which was dipped in a crock-pot of melted butter. Undisclosed was whether the money raised by this event was to be used to fund cardiac-arrest emergency calls for the coming year. After having eaten an ear of this artery-clogging side-dish, Russ and I pedaled a few blocks west to a wine tasting at the Carriage House Museum. Hoping for a little of that “French Paradox” magic, we indulged in a couple of glasses of red (strictly for medicinal purposes, mind you).

We attended the rider’s meeting at 7:30 p.m., which consisted of introductions of the support folks, highlights of the next day’s route, and admonishments to never slam the doors of the sani-cans. Quiet time in camp runs from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m., so it was soon time to crawl into my personal cave, and try to sleep before day 1 of riding.

On to day one!

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