Astoria - Halloween Cyclocross Weekend

My first double-header of the season. We drove up to the Clatsop County Fairgounds early on Saturday morning (note - taking I-5 this year was much faster than Highway 30 the whole way last year), grabbed a tent and got things going. Although Sunday was the Halloween race, there were a few racers who decided that Saturday was fair game for costumes as well.

After a long day, we chained everything big to the generator and hoped it would be there the next morning. I headed down to Gearhart to an amazing house right on the beach (much thanks to HUP United, and especially Lisa May Olson!). A huge family dinner of lasagna and salad was served, and we hung out until very late. At some point I had to clean everything and make another five gallons of waffle batter and some vegan batter, too! Luckily, some of the crew pulled up some floor and chatted with me as I poured mix, cracked eggs, added oil then added water, whipped, poured, and repeated again. No eggs for the vegan mix - silken tofu instead.

Sunday was ridiculous. Costumes were in full effect - from a perfect life-size Marvin the Martian replica to twenty guys and girls dressed as Tron. Our tent was still there, although the overnight wind had shifted things around a bit. In fact, it had blown away one of our neighbor's (Bob's Red Mill - http://www.bobsredmill.com/ - awesome oatmeal) tents and they had pulled their truck into that spot to try and block the wind from their other tent. And Chris King pulled their huge truck behind their setup. And so we had to move all of our stuff to be in line with those guys instead of a lone tent behind a bunch of trucks. So scramble we did to get everything moved.

Meanwhile, the children of folks who had spent the night in Astoria were slowly gathering and chanting for morning waffles! They did not want to wait for anything. It was hectic. I had made a lot of mix and we blew through it by 1:30 pm. There was a constant line. Pretty amazing since we were next door to Chris King's tent where they were giving away FREE pancakes (as they do every year for the Halloween race, and it's awesome), and on the other side of Chris King was Bob's Red Mill, where they were giving away FREE oatmeal.

Of course, I had forgotten something at that house in Gearhart, so we had to drive back down to Gearhart and then back to Portland. It added about 45 minutes or so to the trip, and I was already dead tired. No worries, though. We made it back safely and it was a great weekend.