Ragnar Northwest Passage

Last week while Calissa was at Girl's Camp, the rest of us headed up to Seattle to run the Ragnar Northwest Passage race.  We were supposed to fly out at midday, but we got a text in the morning before leaving for the airport that our plane was delayed 5 hours!  We went out to breakfast and did a few things around the house before heading to the airport. 

Once we got there we found out that we each got $100 vouchers for future travel for our trouble.  That definitely made up for it!  We missed going to the Space Needle and seeing some of the sights of Seattle, but we had money in our pocket.

We flew with Drew, Tina and their kids.  Once we got to Seattle we had to sit on the plane for another 40 minutes waiting for a gate to open us so we could get off the plane.  Once we had our luggage we took the shuttle to get our rental car and then headed into Seattle to meet RK, Rob, and Azure for dinner.  It was great to see RK if only for a short while!

The next morning we picked up Teri from the airport and headed for Canada.

It was a beautiful drive!

Canada flag made out of flowers.

We got to the border and waited our turn. (Luckily they let us in!)  Conner was excited to visit Canada. 

Our original plan was to go to Grouse Mountain to go Zip Lining.  Unfortunately, once we crossed the border our GPS on our phone stopped working.  Luckily I took a picture of this so that's all we had to navigate by.

The traffic was pretty bad in downtown so we stopped at a Safeway to get Sandwiches for lunch.  (Conner liked all those Canadian Flags!)

On my map I could see a green area and we decided to see if we could stop there to eat.  We ended up in beautiful Stanley Park in Vancouver.

We found a path and ended up eating by this pond. 

Parker met a friendly bird

which soon hopped right onto his knee!

We hiked around for a while to see the sights.  We could have spent more time there but it was getting late and we didn't want to get stuck in the rush hour traffic in Vancouver!

Vancouver Bridge

They had horse drawn carriage rides, a place you could rent bikes, a train to ride and many other things.

Some of the beautiful gardens.

Our silly picture!

Isn't it beautiful?  Travis' mom would have loved this!

We found a totem pole too!

Welcome to Vancouver!

After getting back in the US, we checked into our hotel and went out to dinner.  Then, we went shopping for food for Ragnar, took Rob and Azure's car back and then went back to the hotel to sleep!

The next morning, we went to the start line (on the US/Canada border) for our briefing and to start the race.

The start line!

I was the first runner!  10:00 hit and we were off!

Conner was runner two.  

Mount Rainier in the background.

Parker was runner three. Azure was runner four.

Trav was five and Rob was six.  The other van had Drew, Tina, Teri, Doug, Mike, and Jen.

We finished our first runs and went to Wendy's for an early dinner.  Then, we went to the HS where we would meet van 2 to continue our race.

We started off again around 6:00 pm.  Travis ran his long run as the sun was setting.

It was gorgeous!

Our exchange with van 2 happened at La Conner HS!  Conner was pretty excited to see his name spelled correctly!

After that, we headed to our next exchange point to try and get some sleep.  There, they had a Parker Hall! We (I) really didn't get any sleep.  Before we knew it, it was 4:00 am and it was time to run again!

Here is the beautiful sunrise as Azure was running her final long leg.

It was a beautiful morning in Oak Harbor!

Van 1 finished and handed off to Van 2 to finish.  Then, we headed out to breakfast!

Congratulations team "On Your Right!"

We finished in 26 hours and 29 minutes! We ended up finishing 42th overall (539 teams).  35th in the Regular division (490 teams) and 8th in the Men's Open (25 teams). 

After the race we had to take a ferry back to the mainland of WA.  We drove right on the ferry!

It was pretty cool!

After dropping off Azure and Rob at their hotel, we headed back to our hotel to shower and go get some food.  Then, we did the laundry and went to bed early.  The next morning we went to the airport to fly home.  The lines were long, but we made it!

Once we got back to Oakland, got our luggage and got to our car, we found out we had a flat tire! So, we changed our tire to the lovely spare, added some air, 

and drove slowly home!

The funny thing was that as we were pulling in to Park N Fly on Wednesday I thought we had hit something.  I even got out and walked around the car to check all the tires. We ended up with a screw or nail in the tire. Luckily, we were able to get it fixed the next day!

Ragnar was fun (mostly) and we had a great trip with the two boys!