Tour Mom

Before I continue on with each day I wanted to share a cute story that occurred on Sunday. Early on during the Seattle visit it became increasingly obvious that I was the person all the cyclists turned to with questions, concerns, or when they just needed reassurance. I was the tour Mom. At one point a co-worker and I were standing in the cafeteria talking about my status as “Mom” and two of the cyclists came up to me and asked “Erinn do you think we should get dessert?”

Yup I was Mom all right.

Totally missed the boat!

One of the most retold story of the entire Seattle trip happened during registration.

Over the past year or so I was the main contact for the cyclists and many of them I got to know well. From these interactions I was able to tell a lot about the cyclists, how they handle certain things and put them into their groups based on these observations. This was true about all of the cyclists except one. Now I am going to admit some things that well do not put me in the best of lights, and is kind of mean, so I am going to be as generic as possible in describing this cyclist.

From the beginning there was just something off about this cyclist. Every contact that was made to Sea to Sea, was made by a 3rd party. From the application being sent in, the email address, phone calls with questions… nothing came directly from this cyclists to myself or to our communications director. Now this cyclist is over 25, old enough to take care of their own business, so it struck us all as a little odd. (Yes I am admitting we as a staff talked about the cyclists) I was giving the cyclists the benefit of a doubt and thought perhaps their place of employment did not allow personal calls during business hours. Other thought there was just something wrong with the cyclists. Well a couple week before the start of the tour, a 3rd party is on the phone with me, asking questions on the cyclists behalf and in the middle of the conversation the person on the phone says “just a second, cyclists has a question” and then after silence the 3rd party asked the question. Well there went my work theory. Of course I hung up the phone and shared this with the office full of staff. (This is where it gets mean) We all went off, about how there had to be something significantly wrong with this cyclists. We were thinking, deaf, speech impediment, mentally challenged, and on and on. Admittedly this was during our crunch time and we needed a stress reliever, but this cyclist became an inside joke and we mad all kinds of predictions about how many people would come to registration with the cyclists.

Fast forward to registration… It was actually a pretty slow time when this cyclist came in, alone. So I watch as the cyclist crossed the room to come to me at the start of the line. The cyclists gave me their name and I am not going to lie, my jaw hit the table. This person standing in front of me could not be the cyclist we had spent days joking about. The cyclists is a very attractive person, well spoken, personable and by the end of the weekend I discovered very helpful and willing to jump in and lend a hand. I could not believe it, in fact I wanted to text the other staff to tell them, but didn’t get a chance. But as soon as I saw other staffers, it was the first thing I told them.

I can’t believe how off I had been about this cyclist, I had the completely wrong impression. Although I do still find it weird that a 3rd party handled everything.

Bit of a delay

Sorry I have not continued with the Seattle saga for a few days. I had to deal with life…

Now, back to the story.

Saturday June 28th

The bat phone rang at 4:45am Saturday morning, less then 4 hours after I went to bed. It was a cyclist calling with travel changes. I am not going to lie, I let it go to voice mail, but did check it before rolling over to go back to sleep for another hour. Phone calls at all hours of the day and night have not stopped and when they are from a cyclist or a cyclists family I do not care, when they are the wrong number in the middle of the night, I get a little upset.

The team breakfast was at 7:00 am on Saturday, and our group was considerably larger, and so were our tasks for the day. The first order of business was setting the airport shuttle schedule. I also had to change the name on the reservation for the mini van we were renting for the day, which turned out to be the biggest pain!! Another black mark against Thrifty rental car.

Another task for the morning was purchasing a printer cable. Evidently when you purchase a new printer it does not come with a cable.

A few hours of my morning was putting together 12 groups of cyclists for the bike safety course. Now this was not quite as easy as just throwing together groups. The bike safety practical training was taking place in two sessions on Sunday, the 1st from 1:00 pm – 2:30 and the 2nd from 3:00 pm – 4:30pm. At 1:00 pm 30 or so cyclists needed to be at one type of leadership meeting and at 3:00 pm 10 different cyclists needed to be at another meeting. So I had to make sure these cyclists were in the groups that met at the opposite times as well as make sure that family members were in the same groups. After working on this and getting the printer up and running I had everything I needed for registration.

Registration was from 2pm – 5pm and I was so excited to finally meet many of the cyclists in person. During registration one of the funniest moments of the entire trip happened – see the next entry for that story.

Here are some picture I found on other blogs of registration.

Look me on the phone - big surprise!

We actually extended registration until 5:30 since we had a steady stream of people coming in. I knew I was going to have to hold late registrations, so I was okay with staying later if it meant less people to track down.

With the longer time, it meant I had to go right from registration to catering to pick up the cakes for the Meet and Greet starting at 7:00 pm and needed to set up the patio. We got that all set up and soon the patio was filled with cyclists.

Here are a couple pictures I found.

The sea of yellow was a common sight
There was program on the patio, but I missed it, I was on the phone with cyclists who were at the airport. Big surprise.

After the meet and greet I held another registration for the late arriving cyclists, then cleaned up both the patio and the registration room. Lisa Brouwer, one of the cyclists was a great help to me that night. She jumped right in and help out. She is great about doing that. I miss Lisa. After another long day I finally fell into bed around 1 or so.

I do still bake…Occasionally

Let me interrupt my Seattle adventure with a couple pictures of the cake I made last night for my niece’s birthday.

She wanted a High School Musical cake- which is hard to make cute.

I did my best.

The pictures are not great – I sure it had something to do with the warm, humid air in my kitchen.

Friday June 27th

Friday started off with an 8 am meeting with all the staff and volunteers in Seattle to receive our marching orders. There was a lot to be done, so we went with a divide and conquer method. Ed and I started off meeting with the person conducting the bike safety course. Then we met up with Kylie, our event coordinator at the UW. I was so happy to meet Kylie in person after months of working together via phone and email. She was a great help and I enjoyed working with her. During the walk-through we had a few things that needed attention, but they were all things that could be easily fixed. Those meetings took up our morning and we met up with the rest of the group for lunch. After lunch I went to Costco with Bud, a local volunteer who had taken time off of work to help us out. A couple hours later I had all the food we needed for the cyclists for the weekend stored in the living area of our room. I took care of a few other odds and ends until a 5 o’clock Spiritual Support meeting, which I moved to the patio.

Here is a picture of the committee members present at the meeting.

While a meeting took place, I was only present for pieces of it. The rest of the time I was answering phone call after phone call after phone call. I literally was on the phone during more of the meeting then I was off it. CRAZY!

After the meeting it was time to organize the staff dinner. We wanted to have one last time together before all the cyclists came. Our group included the staff, committee members present, support staff (volunteers) and our local volunteers. Bud chose Ram a local brewery. The food was good and plentiful and the bar had more varieties of alcohol that I have ever seen. Of course a portion of the dinner we were working.

Here in a picture of us at dinner

After we returned from dinner Jen and I had some additional things to work on and I fell into bed around 1 am.

The UW

The University of Washington has got to be one of the most beautiful collage campuses. The buildings are old stone and brick buildings with a ton of character, the streets are lined with mature trees, providing cool paths and the building we stayed was located on a hill overlooking Lake Washington with Mt. Rainier in the background. It was just gorgeous. The back of our dorm had this huge patio that I absolutely loved. Boy I wish I took some pictures. Once I discovered the patio, I moved as many meetings there as possible.

I found this picture of the view from the patio on one of the cyclists blogs.

Unfortunately the dorm rooms left a little to be desired. This building had it rooms arraigned in clusters. There are 4 two person bed rooms surrounding a living area and a bathroom. The bedrooms are relatively big, but the furniture is bolted to the walls. The beds are a slab of wood attached to the wall with some deluxe blow up mattress on it. Each room also has two closets that take up way too much of the floor space (never thought you would hear me complain about a closet being too big :) ) and two desks again bolted to the walls. Most of the beds had drawers under them. While it was fine for me for the weekend, I can’t imagine living there for a year. And I had a room to myself (Jen, Ed and I all had rooms to ourselves since we had work to do until all hours of the night.) Then there is the bathroom – it had one toilet, one shower and two sinks, for 8 people! My sister and I had that set up growing up and I can’t tell you the number of fights that ensued between the two of us. Just imagine 8 people for a year. We did fine with the 6 of us for the weekend, but there were several discussions on who was going to take a shower when.

The staff was amazing. At the beginning of each new shift I would introduce myself to the new staff, explaining I was the coordinator of the event and chances are, I would need something. And I always did, carts to move stuff around, keys to various rooms, directions to the place, copies, things printed off. I am not going to lie, I asked for a lot. The staff consistently was friendly and quick to help. I need to look into talking to their boss and let them know how accommodating they all were.

The weather in Seattle was abnormally warm and the UW does not have air conditioning, which was one downside. Thankfully it is really not humid there and there was nice breeze to cool things off. The cafeteria was big and had plenty of selections. When I had a chance to eat I was happy.

Being a tourist pt 2

Located in the market is the original Starbucks. Even a non-coffee drinker like me can appreciate the significance of the location. I have to admit I like the brown coloring better then the trademark green

Inside the store

The acknowledgment of the store

Just behind the market there is plaza where we took some great pictures

We left the market area in search of dinner. We found this great place right on the water, Fisherman's. It was wonderful! I am not the biggest fish fan, but I am a big "when in rome" person, so I had to order fish for dinner. Even with the prices being more then I often spend a week in groceries, I ordered the Alaskan Halibut. It was amazing! It melted in my mouth and the best fish I have ever had. I would highly recommend both the restaurant and the meal to anyone.

After a nice, leisurely dinner enjoying the view of Elliot Bay, we headed off to the original REI. Now if you don't know REI it is a big sporting store - much like a Cabela's and the closest one to GR is in Novi. Again not a store I would usually go to, but my co-workers wanted to pick up a few thing for their nine week trip and I was looking for a bargain on water proof shoes and a good rain coat for the Alaska trip. I didn't find either, so back to the online shopping (or taking up some offers of borrowing.)

The flagship REI is located in the middle of Seattle, but you would never know it. There are trails that lead up to the store - here is the view from one of them

Looking up from the trail, this is the entrance of the store.

After leaving REI we headed over to the University of Washington, our home for the next few days and the start of all the insanity.

Being a tourist

Thursday afternoon we left from the airport and headed downtown for a little sight seeing. Jen wanted to go to Pikes Place Market, so we headed in that direction. Ed drove since he has been to Seattle and at least had some idea of where to go. He pointed out some of the landmarks including The Space Needle, which is much shorter then I expected, and the Experience Music Project, which has some cool architecture. We then parked and made our way up the million stairs to the market (I am only slightly exaggerating on the number of stairs) This time is one of the few times I was actually able to take some pictures.

Here is the entrance to the market.

A close up of the flower boxes

Looking out at the skyline of Seattle from the market.

I couldn't not take a picture of the bakery.

The produce looked wonderful - but it didn't make much sense to buy anything to bring to the dorm.

Peppers anyone?

A closer look

Travel to Seattle, Thursday 6/26

My day started out early because my flight was moved up to 8:20 am. I arrived at the airport slightly after 7:00 to check in. My first flight was a direct flight to Denver – this is the first of three times I will take this flight over the next few months. The flight was fine, a little turbulent, but over all a good flight. Unfortunately I was not so great. Something did not sit well with me or I was just over tired from the lack of sleep and I forgot to take some ibuprofen when I first started getting a headache. By the time we landed in Denver, I was not feeling well at all. Thankfully I did not get sick, but it was touch and go for a while. During the layover I drank sprite to try to settle my stomach and thankfully it did. I was not looking forward to getting on another plane in such a state. I was also very thankful to be traveling with my co-worker Jen – she was a great help in watching my stuff as I tried to recover. By the time the second flight took off I was feeling better, but already behind schedule as I planned on working during the lay over. The flight between Denver and Seattle was much smoother, and I was able to sleep for a little while, which I needed.

As we approached Seattle the scenery was amazing. We were on the left side of the plane and had the most amazing view of Mt. Rainer. The snow topped mountain was breath taking, and I made sure to change my seat on my flight out in September to be able to see it again. As we were flying over the city I noticed the bridges over Lake Washington. They looked so low, I could not figure out why they were like that. I later found out that they are not bridges, they are floating highways.

We landed on time, around 1:15 Western time, so it felt like 4:15 EST. The airport was easy to navigate and we quickly made our way to the baggage claim. Thankfully I was feeling fine by the point. The plan was for Jen and I to pick up the rental car and wait for our other co-worker, Ed to arrive. He was supposed to be about 45 min behind us. Thrifty car rental was a fiasco – it took us forever to be waited on. I was not happy. I waited over a half an hour for the clerk to wait on the two people in front of me. Then I needed to make another reservation for Saturday, we needed a mini van to serve as a shuttle on Saturday. The clerk could not help me, so I had to call the reservation number as I stood at the counter. I can not recommend them for future rentals. By the time we got through the rental issues, we found out Ed’s plane had been delayed until after 3:00 pm. So Jen and I sat down in the waiting area and did some work. I can only imagine the sight, with four cell phones and two lap tops between us, we were constantly on a phone or two and checking multiple email accounts. It set the tone for the entire weekend.

Once Ed arrived we picked up the car and decided to go downtown for a bit of fun before the real craziness ensued.

Where to start?

What is that they say about the best laid plans? I had intended to update each day I was in Seattle, but obviously this did not happen. I was just way too busy. So now I will try to recount the details. I think the best place to start is at the beginning of the trip. I will try to go chronologically, with a tangent or two thrown in.


Wednesday

I want to include one small detail from Wednesday, because it is so telling of what would come. Around 11:45 pm I was finishing up packing when my phone rang. I have been given the cell phone that will serve as the emergency contact number during the tour as well as the number the cyclist were given to call with any travel issues/updates. I have nick named this phone the bat phone. So 11:45 pm the bat phone rings. The caller, one of the cyclists was calling from the west coast and didn’t think about which time zone he was calling. I laughed it off, since I was still up, but other times this will not be so funny.

Blogjacked

Over the summer the focus of Erinn’s Edibles will be my reflections on the Sea to Sea bike tour. Beginning with my trip to Seattle, WA for the kick off. I just returned this morning, around 9:30 am after a delay in Seattle. I have so much to share about my 6 days in Seattle. Over the next several days I will post several entries about my travels, the tour, the cyclists both as a whole and some individuals, my transformation, the send off, the first day, time with my cousin, and being caught in the middle of a high speed police chase in downtown Seattle. Stay tuned for all the excitement.