Seattle to Portland Bike Ride

Ever since Shane got his road bike (and let’s be honest, probably even before he got his road bike), he’s been talking about doing the Seattle to Portland bike ride.  This summer, the stars finally aligned for him to do it, and he even had Jake to bring along with him.  It ended up being quite the adventure for all of us – Shane and Jake riding their bikes for 203 miles in one day in near-record high temperatures, and Stacey and I driving the same distance with eight children in tow, including many stops for traffic, to go to the bathroom, to eat lunch at Wendy’s after waiting in the longest Wendy’s line I’ve ever been in, to search for Shane and Jake since we missed them at lunch (see above list of reasons why), and even to remove pancake stuffed up Maggie’s nose. 

After many failed attempts and finding the boys, we finally met up with them at a rest stop at about mile 140.  We saw Jake ride up and were so excited we had finally connected!  Jake said Shane was right behind him, but after only a couple of minutes, we realized Shane hadn’t got the message to stop at this rest stop, so he had kept riding!  I hurried and got in the car to catch up to him, about a mile or two down the road, and drove him back to the rest stop.  I guess now he can say his STP ride was 205 miles.  We were all doing fairly well despite all the above.

Based on how are day had gone so far, we decided it would be best to just drive to Portland at this point instead of going home then back to Portland for the finish line.  We knew we’d have time to kill, but we ended up having a lot more than we originally thought. Jake had a tire blow and the heat wasn’t doing them any favors while they rode! So, we hung out at the mall. We were quite a sight with eight kids, and we did lots of things to keep them busy and happy like . . .

…jumping and looking at themselves on the security camera at Gap, riding the escalators over and over, running and jumping down the corridors while yelling “Hurray!”:

…climbing on things on the third floor after eating dinner, posing like the crazy statue lady outside the ice cream store, and eating ice cream on the first floor after climbing on things on the third floor:

We somehow survived the two hours, and finally made our way outside to the finish line.  While we waited for them to come in, the kids started giving all the bikers high-fives as they rode past.  They had a lot of fun, and counted how many high-fives they got.  Landon said he got 102!

And finally, here they come!!!  (Photo credit:  Stacey for all photos except my blurry shot of Shane going by)

What an amazing accomplishment!  203 miles in one day!  They were exhausted but in good spirits at the finish line. 

As we met them after they crossed the finish line, we found these little fountains.  If we had only known they were there sooner we could’ve made our mall excursion a little less torturous!  The kids had fun cooling off in the water, and even Shane and Jake got in to cool off after their ride.

 

Phone pictures from the boys at the starting line, as well as some along the way:

Shane apparently needed to stop for some “real food” – chocolate milk and donuts.