I don't have to travel for work very often (thankfully) and when I do it tends to be during the week and the days are full. That means downtime is pretty rare - wake, breakfast, work, dinner, bed or fly home. Which is kind of unfortunate. If you're going to have to travel around occasionally on someone else's coin, it would be nice to at least see some of the local sites...
So, when I found out last Thursday that I needed to be in Jessup MD at 7am on Saturday, I was not pleased about having to go out of town, but... if all went smooth on Saturday, I'd have nothing to do on Sunday. Again, if you didn't figure it out from the first paragraph, I'm not the fan of travel that I once was. I'd much rather be able to see stuff with the family or go somewhere to ride my bike.. but it's nice having a job too, so we do what we need to do.
As I've been dipping my toe a bit deeper into photography over the last couple of years, I've been more aware of trying to keep a camera with me. This is especially true of whenever I've been travelling (never mind that like I said above, I usually don't have any time, or the fact that if I really wanted to create images I could do it out my front door...), I always take a camera with me. Part of that 'carry the camera with you' idea, and partly because they've gotten so good of late, pushed me to get rid of all my cameras and consolidate to a micro 4/3 (MFT) camera. Love it. Small, versatile, good images, and fun to shoot.
I decided that, if I had a Sun off in Jesssup MD, I'd head about 30 minutes east and spend some time at the Annapolis City Dock. All my previous memories have been fogged by 6+ days of sleep deprivation because of RAAM, but I seem to remember that it was a pretty cool place. So, that's what I did on my one day off, out of town, no wife, no kids, no dog, had the bed all to myself... I got up at 5am to drive to Annapolis to take pictures of the sunrise (my wife thinks I'm crazy).
Got there just about the perfect time for the dawn, spent about 4 hours walking around. Had coffee, watched the locals. Had a crepe, more coffee, more locals... Checked out some exotics and muscle cars that showed up for a Sun morning meetup and generally just relaxed and enjoyed it. Carried the MFT on a wrist strap, acted like a tourist, had a great time. And, got out of there before all the real tourist showed up and clogged everything up.
I hadn't originally planned on doing anything with the images I took until I got back home on Thursday, but I had time Sunday afternoon and wanted to go ahead and push some out to G+. But.. I shot them all in raw and had a loaner work laptop with no software on it. Search was on for free raw editing software. A few minutes on Google culled it down to Olympus Viewer 3, free download (if you have a valid Olympus S/N - I do), and pretty decent adjustment and develop tools. By no stretch is it Lightroom, but it was free and got the job done that needed to be done. I'm interested to compare these jpg's to edits out of Lightroom after I get home.
So... after all of that, if you're still reading, I hope you enjoy the images.
The Race Across AMerica (RAAM) is a truly unique event. There isn't really anything else in the world, at least that I know of, like it. The obvious comparisons to the Grand Tours aren't really valid, nor is any comparison to any multi-stage cycle, running, or even motorsports event. Once RAAM starts, the clock never stops until the rider(s) complete the entire distance, basically it's just one stage.
Any type of Grand Tour, rally, or even events like Paris - Dakar, London - Sydney, or the old Camel Trophy's all allow time to rebuild, repair, and rest each night. RAAM is likely better compared to any of the 24 hour races like Daytona, Le Mans, or Nürburgring. Once the event starts, everything counts, and any time spent not moving forward is time and / or distance that your competitors are getting away from you.
What RAAM does have in common with any of these large scale, cross country events, is that all the personal and materiel have to be successfully moved and utilized across a large area. And the team never has an opportunity to do any repair, recovery, etc. at a 'home base'. The entire circus has to be supported in a mobile environment. If a team averages 20 mph, then every 24 hours the entire operation has moved 480 miles from where it started. The logistic challenge that starts with getting 3+ vehicles, 10+ bikes, 18+ people, plus all the materiel to support an 8 person team, to San Diego, then continues for 6 days trying to keep up with all the above moving east nearly 500 miles each day.
So why do it? RAAM does provide the average person to participate in something that is an what can best be described as an adventure. Not only an adventure, but one that not very many people have participated in. In 2013, 162 people finished RAAM. The most people to summit Everest on a single day was on May 23, 2010. That day 169 people reached the summit.
I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to participate in RAAM in both 2010 and 2012 with The Georgia Chain Gang (GCG). Like many teams, the GCG used RAAM as a fundraising tool for a charity. RAAM is such a big event that goes across the entire country and takes 5+ days to complete, that teams have a bigger marketing footprint than many other events. Anyone that knows me or anything about he GCG knows that The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) has been the benefactor of all the fundraising that the GCG has generated each year that they did the event.
For 2014 I may have another opportunity to participate with an 8 person team, again raising money for LLS. At this point I'm not sure if I'll be riding or crewing, or if the effort will happen at all in 2014. But, I believe it will happen, and if it does, I'm hopeful that I will be participating in some function. Even if it was completely up to me, I'm not sure if I'd be happier riding or crewing. I feel that I could make a meaningful contribution in either capacity, so... don't know.
For know, I'm going with the assumption that the 2014 effort is going ahead. Which means my primary source of fundraising, bike repair, is back in business. In both 2010 and 2012 I did a lot of work on a lot of bikes. So, the shop is open. Hopefully between repair, moving some Ebay fodder, fundraiser's, and just plain beating the bushes for donations, I'll be able to crack the fundraising. And if I'm going to ride, the training is going to have to take a serious upturn.
Stay tuned...
