more from on the road

This afternoon, I wandered through the streets of Astoria and drove up to the Astoria Column, one of the main tourist attractions in the town. This is a view of the Columbia River from the plaza of the tower....





This is the Astoria Tower. The carvings on the side are actually quite detailed and depict the story of Lewis and Clark's discovery and subsequent plundering of Oregon.









Detail from one of the information plaques on the Tower lawn.








More detail. Notice how the spelling of "ocean" was "ocian" back when Lewis and Clark first documented their discovery. Given the dynamic nature of language, perhaps one day it will be acceptable for people to spell words as they please -- but I hope not.






Some of the beautiful detail from the tower on a rather foggy day -- just like San Francisco!

As I mentioned earlier in my other blog, I am staying at a new hotel on the Columbia River in Astoria. My room has a small balcony and this is the view looking out onto the river. This is actually a pretty unusual view in that there aren't any ships or boats in this shot: the Columbia is a very busy river, with ships constantly bringing in cargo and fishing boats returning from sea. Astoria is located at junction of the Columbia and the Pacific so navigating entry is supposedly pretty tricky.


This is another shot of the Columbia, but from the window seat -- binoculars included!











View of the room -- fireplace on the left, observation window and balcony to the right and center, respecively.

humor from the relay

Each HTC team is required to have two vans to ferry six members each between transition areas. Many of the teams decorate their vans with magnetic posters, washable window paint and other items so that team members can find them easily at a transition point. Since each team is required to have a name, most will decorate their vans with their team names or drawings that are somehow related to their team name. Many of the team names, in the spirit of the light hearted nature of the race, are humorous: 'L.O.S.T: Lack of Speed and Talent', the 'Go-Nads' (the winner of last year's best team name contest), 'Physical Fatness,' etc. Here's a photo I took of one team's van (click to see detail). The vaan seems pink at first glance, but the team has actually painted the entire vehicle to match their 'Inky Oinkers' theme.

more HTC

The majesty of Mount Hood was the backdrop for the starting line of the Hood to Coast Relay. Groups of 12 runners were sent off fifteen minutes apart with 1000 registered teams in total. Today's weather was outstanding: 80 degrees and sunny and despite the heat of the summer, there were still snowboarding and skiing camps and clinics being run on the mountain at the Timberline Lodge -- you can see the tips of someone's skis here -- and they continue through the official end of summer.

on the road

This sign greeted us late last night at the Nike store -- apparently this relay is a Big Deal. There were dozens of runners waiting for the store to open this morning, teams from all over the world are here to run. Many of the people awaiting Nike's opening were dressed in team uniforms and it seemed that they took this race fairly seriously. Results are based on an honor system of self reporting individual times and adding them up for a team time, so there aren't really any official times as runners are not given a timing chip for the relay.

first post, test test

This is my cat Mars with my BOSU. Perhaps it's not my BOSU as he seems to be getting more use of it these days....