The Steens and the Bend Beer Chase

Bret and I spent some time on the east side of the Cascades the last two weekends.

The Steens

Memorial Day weekend, we took advantage of Bret’s extra day off and drove out to the Steens Mountains.  It was a lot of time in the car, but we were rewarded with a pretty nice camping spot and a real pretty hike.

We were also rewarded with several snake sightings, a lot of ticks and mosquitoes, and a tired puppy dog.

Bend Beer Chase

This past weekend, we participated in the Bend Beer Chase for the second year.  It is a 52-mile relay race.  This year, we pulled it off with just four runners (last year we had six).  The Cascadia Drinking Alliance consisted of me, Bret, Lauren, and Cindy and our amazing volunteers, Ed and Jason.

Here is a before picture of Cindy, Lauren, and I.  All smiles.

The race start

The only hand-offs I managed to catch were of Cindy handing the baton (a slap bracelet) off to Lauren.  It is starting to get warm in the first shot and officially hot by the second.

I think these really capture how much Lauren loves running.

A post-race, beer leg photo from Atlas Cider in Bend.

The race was super fun, especially in retrospect.  It was definitely more difficult with a team of four, but we had a great team and everyone stayed positive despite the heat and the extra miles.  I am pretty sure the beer tastings available at every exchange probably helped with the smiles and good attitudes.

Thanks so much to our designated driver, Jason, and our super volunteer, Ed.  Ed got accolades for being a great volunteer from the race staff and I can attest to the superiority of his flag waiving skills compared to other team’s volunteers.