Team: Clutch Droppers
Day 1: 12-2pm
After the driver meeting concluded it was time to say goodbye to Ryan’s jeep for a few days. After locking it and ensuring it had a legible note for the park rangers on the inside of the windshield we strode over to our 90’s abomination and fired it up for the start of the event. One final check of our items and the car and we were off to the start line. To get us in the mood I popped the aux cable into my phone and loaded up one of my most played albums:
As the flag dropped I hammered the gas pedal, after a gloriously long burnout the car finally found traction in 2nd gear, shooting out of the park entrance and onto the main road, we were off!
Cruising down I5 towards Deception Pass Bridge and the Coupeville ferry terminal we DEFINITELY maintained the speed limit, like totes, for sure. It was a nice day for driving, 63 degrees and partly cloudy, allowing us to cruise along with the windows down and music blaring. Jason was in the back seat playing on his 3DS, it was either a Final Fantasy or other RPG/tactics game. Ryan was writing down some coding notes in the passenger seat and tapping along to the music.
Ryan: O YES! Don’t Stop Me Now!!!
All: I’M A SHOOTING STAR LEAPING THROUGH THE SKY
LIKE A TIGER DEFYING THE LAWS OF GRAVITYYYYYYYY
I’M A RACING CAR PASSING BY LIKE LADY GODIVA
I’M GOING TO GO GO GO
THERE’S NO STOPPPING ME!!!
i’M BURNING THROUGH THE SKY, YEAH
TWO HUNDRED DEEGRESS, THAT’S WHY THEY CALL ME MISTER FAHRENHEIT
I’M TRAVELING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHTTTTTTTT
I WANT TO MAKE A SUPERSONIC MAN OUT OF YOU!!!
Once the song had faded away I glanced at the speedometer and realized we MAY have gone a tad over the speed limit so I let off the gas a bit, besides we were getting close to the bridge by now.
Pulling off to the side just before the bridge we got out quickly to take a picture and stretch a bit.
Whipping out his phone Ryan walks over to the side a bit to get a nice shot of the bridge.
Bob: Alright let’s hurry up, we are burning time here! Pile back in so we can make the first ferry!
A little while later we had exhausted our Queen music, but had also reached the ferry. We were a bit disappointed to see we were not the first ones there, but still pretty early considering how many cars had set off this morning and how many were at the ferry already. While we waited for the other cars to show up Ryan and I took some photos of the beautiful scenery and chatted with the other teams as they arrived. Jason stayed in the car charging and playing his 3DS. Thank god we had remembered to bring not only some AC adapters for the car, but also our own personal battery banks.
Ryan: Hey, either of you want some jerky? 'cause it’s jerky time!
Jason and Bob: Ew, no.
Bob: I do have a little bacon based jerky though, and it’s actually good!
Jason: cracks open a Mountain Dew This is all I need to survive…
Bob: Don’t go wasting all of the supplies already guys, we have a long drive ahead of us and I don’t want to waste time stopping for food and drinks. I only want to stop when we absolutely have to… I would tell you to pee in a cup, but that is a bit extreme honestly.
Ryan: I just realized… why were we so determined to get to the ferry “first”? Now we are near the front of the boat and when we get to the other side… we are almost last getting off. That will surely hurt us as there may be a few faster cars near the back of the ferry that just did not drive as hard down here…
Bob: Ummmmmm… you may have a point. I guess I will just have to be aggressive getting off the ferry. Would it be frowned upon to simply push the other cars out of the way?
Jason: I think that cop guy would do you in if you tried it.
Bob: Right…
Day 1: 2-4pm
After the ferry finally docked and the cars started to roll off we gave the map a once over and started the car up. Surprisingly it sprung right to life and felt ready to tackle the next section of road. After all the slow poke cars near the rear of the ferry had finally cleared away I put my foot down, a bit less vigorously than earlier, and immediately shot ahead a few of the slower cars still struggling to get up to speed outside of the ferry port.
Bob: looks like we have another POI coming up, do you guys want to get out for a quick break?
Ryan: Nah, we just had a break on the ferry, let’s see how much distance we can put between us and everyone behind us.
Jason: Totally engrossed in his game
Bob: Pops in the trusty aux cable and loads up some Hamilton (the music is so damn good!)
Jason: What, this again?? Every time we are in the car you play this, give it a rest just this once.
Ryan: Yeah, let’s get some more rock!
Bob: Fine, fine… Styx good?
Jason and Ryan: Yeah
As the sweet melodies of Styx reverberated within the car and surrounding countryside we pounded away at the miles in relative comfort. Passing Forks we couldn’t help but make jokes about the movies. Jason and I had actually enjoyed the first book quite a lot (still can’t tell you why I liked it as much as I did), but the movies were just garbage.
Morale: +4 (Things are going good and we are near the front of the pack)
Fatigue: +1 (The driver’s seat is in terrible shape and it’s starting to wear on me a bit)