Home at last

What a bummer to be home! Our trip home yesterday was just awful, full of plane delays and hours of sitting around the American terminal at Chicago's O'Hare airport. G and I had tickets to the Bengals' Monday Night Football game, but were unable to make it. By the time we drove past the stadium on our way home, the stadium was completely empty and the game had been over for an hour or so. It would have been the perfect cap to a pretty amazing weekend.

More to come later about the trip, including all the photos that the entire team took while we were out on the road. I also got some video during the race and at beautiful Cannon Beach the day after.

The official race results are up at www.hoodtocoast.com. Click here to get directly to them. Our team was called "The Porkopolis Pacers". We finished 213 overall out of 1032 teams with a time of 26:15:50.

Oh, and most importantly, our roadkill totals:

Gretchen: 28
Dan: 38

Finally headed home

We are finally on our way back home. Hope traffic from the game isn't too bad.

At the Indy airport waiting for our bag

Waiting for our bag @ Indy.

We are not at the Bengals game

Damn! Watching the game at the airport.

Tickets to MNF

We're not going to make it to the Bengals game tonight. Sucks! We are stuck at O'hare waiting for a flight to Indy.

Bored

Stuck in the damn airport.

Headed out of Portland... 30 minutes late

So, here we are on our flight to Chicago. The plane ends up being delayed by 30 minutes because of weather at O'Hare and case a chain reaction of suckyness.

Good morning!

We are back in the van now on our way to PDX. Woke up @ 4 - sleep deprivation continues. Hope we make our flight. Lots of fog on the road

Sunrise en route to portland

Lynn & Debbie

Cannon beach

Haystack rock @ cannon beach

Lovin' the DQ!

Gretchen and Lynn are loving the Dairy Queen in Seaside.

Yum!

Might as well take photos while I am waitin for my Blizzard.

Fog in Seaside on Sunday

G, Lewis & Clark

G is on the phone with her parents, while standing next to Lewis and Clark.

Umm... fudge?

2nd leg of H2C

Another late posted photo. There was no cell phone reception up by Mt. Hood (at least not for me). This was taken during Paul Stamp's first leg of the race - the second leg over all.

Xinglet

Jeremy in the van wearing the Xinglet. I think he had just gotten done with his second leg. Hard to tell since I wasn't able to send this photo when I took it due to lack of signal.

Jeremy and Honey Bucket Row

While van 1 was running their last legs, us van 2 folks were able to stop at this middle school and take a shower for $3. It was good for everyone... we were dying for a shower and they raised money for their PTA. Nice! We were also able to get some burgers and stuff there too. But, don't worry... they still had chicken burgers and Boca veggie burgers for folks that are either vegetarian or didn't want the grease before they ran their last leg of the race.

Jeremy in the van

Breakfast @ the beach house

Dan on sunday morning

Beergarden

This one goes out to Scott

Revelers

The Muscle

Russell "The Muscle" Blanck tells us exactly what's up.

Just crossed the finish line

Finish line party

Lynn, Richard and Russell on the beach at the finish line party.

Van 2 posse

Darleen, Lynn, Russell and Jeremy.

Walking in Seaside

Here, van 2 was headed to the beach at Seaside to catch Debbie Oliva as she ran in the last leg. I guess we were crossing a bridge over a inlet or something when I took the photo.

The finish line!

Van 1 is done! We've checked into the beach house & now we're on our way to seaside. Van 2 is still out, toiling in the sun. Hope that Dan

Made it to the coast!

Jeremy & Russell

Hopping back in the van.

Runners in sleeping bags are everywhere

The St. Helens high school athletic boosters host runners for breakfast, showers, & sleep

Mcdonalds for breakfast

In the van after a minor snafu. We were locked out of our van @ exchange 17. Fortunately we found a police officer who helped us. Now we'r

More traffic chaos

Toweling off.

In the dark

Debbie and Lynn in the dark.

Mt. Hood in the distance. Parking chaos in the foreground.

Dave takes a gu to prepare for his run

Chippy's buddy

This is Chippy's new buddy... though Chippy never new it because Chippy was in the other van. We found this guy at the Ivy Bear in the back by the patio. The poor moose has bird poop on him and that little squirrel is just taunting him. So sad.

Hilarious

The Ivy Bear had this stuff up everywhere.

Leg 2 & 3 exchange point

Dana has taken off on the third leg at this point.

Dana is ready

En route to Mt. Hood

A glimpse of Mt Hood

Van 1

Paul, Jeremy, & Russel

Runners loading up their vans @ our hotel. 1000 teams x 12 runners today.

Chippy has his bib & is studying the course.

Hey! Found a little internet access from our hotel here in Portland. We are checking out at noon (pst) and heading out to the base of Mt. Hood where the start of the race is. So, we've got quite a wait until we start running. Gretchen is starting off the relay first with a pretty steep downhill. I'm running my first leg (leg 10 overall) around midnight. It's really strange preparing for a race like this - it's like nothing we have ever done before.

While we've been here, we have had a chance o run around with Gretchen's college friend Tori and his wife. They took us a nice little breakfast place this morning - thanks guys!

From what we have seen, Portland is an awesome city. We could really see ourselves living here. It seems to on our wavelegnth.

Okay, off the computer for now. Pictures should be rolling in from Gretchen and me all day long. So, keep checking back.

Wish us luck!

Everyone's packing up

There were another of other teams that were staying at the hotel on Friday night. In the photo, you can see a few of them packing up and heading out. We were about to head downstairs to pack up at this point ourselves.

The uni

Here's are team shirt - we are teh Porkopolis Pacers. BAD-ASS! H2C, here we come!

Hovering above

Nancy, Paul and others... a view from above.

Phone pictures galore!

Photo of a photo

G and I showed off our photoblogging prowess at dinner, blogging a photo of a photo that blogged previously. Amazing stuff.

Dinner with the team @ Fratelli

Waiting at the train stop

We stop for a self-portrait on our way out to the team dinner.

Portland...

Gretchen and Chippy

Gretchen and Chippy find a cozy spot outside of Mother's after we have some lunch.

Mother's

The crew

These folks are happy to be in Portland. Off to Mother's!

Coming into downtown Portland

Going across a bridge. Exciting, huh?

Paul and his shirt

Is Paul on vacation, or what?

Headed west

Looking out the window of our plane as we are headed to Portland.

At O'hare

Going to find where our connection filght is, the some food.

Stuck on the tarmac in Indy

G and Starbucks

Um... babe, you can't bring that thru security.

Gluping down breakfast

My fuel belt for H2C, courtesy of Seed Strategy. Filled with gardening gloves, salad dressing, croutons, Hershey's kisses, red pepper flakes - it's got all the essentials for an endurance event. Office mascot Chippy appears at right.

G. Mahan - Hood to Coast 2006

Check here August 25-26 for photos from our Hood to Coast adventure! Sunday the 27th is our first anniversary, so I'll probably post some schmaltzy pics of Dan and me on the beach at Seaside.