Ragnar Los Coyotes: The Arrival

When last I blogged, I covered the many different aspects that go into planning a successful Ragnar trail adventure for our team. With all of that out of the way and another successful relay in the books, it's time to recap the actual event.  Here we go!

The first time we did Ragnar McDowell, we had the lovely Sara Murphy as part of our team; in addition to being a delightful person overall, she was also a valuable source of Ragnar trail knowledge, as she'd done the race the year prior.  One of the best hints she gave us was to have someone plan to come to the event on Thursday night, the evening before it officially began, to set up camp and grab a good location for the rest of the team.  We found that to be true in our years at McDowell, and given our early start time for Ragnar Los Coyotes (9:15am), the entire team joined us for Thursday night camping before the race began.

In Long Beach, Chris and I spent the morning packing up the back seat of the pickup truck with our gear, both for Ragnar and for the two days we'd spend in Palm Springs after the relay ended.  We ate a brief lunch at home and headed out the door right around noon (we also got caught up on our reality tv watching for the week, viewing the most recent Survivor and Lip Sync Battle episodes.  Priorities, people).

The Movember mustache came along as well.

Hooray.

Everything fit well in the back seat of the truck,

as that thing is huge!

When we moved Chris to CA last May,

the back seat held our big tv AND the loveseat.

You could camp inside it, if you felt like it.

We were lucky in that we had the shortest drive to the event (2.5 hours), as our AZ counterparts' driving time doubled that.  In Tucson, Jen and Bryan were on their way, accompanied by their fur-kids, Bogey and Bronx:

Happy dog faces!

Also coming from Tucson were Joe and Janie, Bryan's parents, who were visiting us for the relay and stayed in the RV camping lot onsite.  Further pictures and many, many kind words of appreciation will come about them later, as we truly valued their contributions to our Ragnar experience.

For their part, Matt and Jake left work about halfway through the day and headed west, stopping a few times for camp supplies, snacks, gas, trucker hats (yup - in Quartzsite), and dinner at what seemed to be a really interesting place - the Paradise Valley Cafe.  According to the guys, each one of them ordered the meatloaf special, which easily would have fed three-four people.  By the time they arrived at camp a bit later than they anticipated (thanks, Waze app!), they were well fortified with food and stories, to be sure.

But back to the Olsen adventure - after leaving home around noon, we stopped in Temecula around 1:30.  We went ahead and grabbed gas after exiting the 15 freeway, as we weren't sure where we might find some closer to Warner Springs (it was a bit desolate once we hit the 79).  I'd also read of a great brewery/pizza place in Temecula called Garage Brewing, and it didn't disappoint.  We grabbed a pie for a snack and a flight of samplers, and all were quite good:

Noms!

After our time at Garage, we hopped back onto the 79 and started off toward the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation, our home for the next few nights.  We turned onto Camino San Ignacio right around 3:45, just before the gates were scheduled to open at 4pm.  As is normal for us (Ashley family motto: you're not on time if you're not 15 minutes early), this meant we waited in a short line before heading into the site itself.

The moon was almost full for our runs,

which made things nice at night.

We followed this Mazda for awhile,

as you can see.

The traffic controllers were on point, and we quickly headed to the gear drop section of the campground.  After helping Chris unload our gear, I hopped into the driver's seat and drove the truck to the parking area (not very far away) while he picked us out a good campsite.  I had a quick walk back to the gear drop area and then helped him finish moving our items to the campsite he selected.  We started setting up camp and staking our claim to our area.

As you can see, those are the signs for all three loops.

Chris found us a great location right on the outgoing
courses for all three runs,

so we could easily cheer on runners as they started.

The yellow and green loops also ran back

to the transition tent on this path,

so we could see folks coming and going.

Starting to blow up air mattresses!

After we'd been at camp for about an hour, the Spencer contingent arrived (Bryan, Jen, Joe, and Janie), and we helped them unpack as well.  We set up the new tent and started decorating with lights and whatnot.  Another one of our runners, Kelly, who happens to be Bryan's sister, was flying into San Diego a bit later, so Joe and Janie traded vehicles with Bryan and Jen and headed out to pick her up.  After working a bit longer at camp, we headed to the RV to hang out with Bryan, Jen, and the kiddos.

Bryan's face is how I feel about Kombucha at all times.

Eek.

Bogey, happy lab

Jen, chilling out

Bronx, also happy lab

While we visited, Chris and I cooked some meat on the stove in the RV and made some tacos, enjoying our dinner.  Since Jake and Matt were arriving soon thereafter, we headed back to camp to help them find our location once they made it to us; we helped them unload and get the car parked, and then we settled into our respective camp chairs and sleeping bags, as the night was starting to cool down.  

Killing time in camp.

I'm a ninja!

Dark selfie!

Bryan came back a bit later to deliver a special surprise I'd asked Jen to pick up along their way for Chris; since it was Chris' birthday the Monday after the race, and his favorite dessert of all time is chocolate chip cookies, Jen and Bryan stopped along their way to grab a giant cookie to split with the team.  Needless to say, he was stoked, and we all had dessert for the remainder of our time together.

So happy!

Since I don't generally sleep well before major events like this, I sacked out around 10:30, saying goodnight to the gentlemen, who stayed up a bit longer, catching up.  Joe and Janie also made it back to the site with Kelly, who had a successful adventure across the country, even landing an hour earlier than expected.  Eventually, everyone headed to bed in their respective areas, eager to start our running the next morning!

Later!

Amy