I am in a Starbucks in Eugene, OR, mere steps away from the University of Oregon campus. I spent a good part of the afternoon touring said campus, and will be posting a slideshow at some point in the near future.

Sadly, as OU is a quarter school, their Fall Term does not start until 9/22, so the campus was largely empty of its finest feature, college students (*sad face emoji *). Fortunately, this Starbucks seems to be a collection point for the remaining members of the tribe known internally as “lovely young ladies!”

“How did you get THERE”, you may be thinking? This begins yet another chapter in the continuing “Hanging With Ward” series, and the plot was hatched just this past Wednesday. Kerry Winston-Ward was in LA, having made his way up from Cabo San Lucas, via a week at Burning Man, but had to head out the next day to attend to business. What was going to be problematic was getting his Prius to Vancouver, so I jumped at the chance to get a trip to Vancouver.

I got his car on Thursday. The plan is to rendezvous in Seattle Monday night, then work one of his events at Microsoft Tuesday morning, after which he will grab a plane for further travels beginning in Minnesota Wednesday, and terminating in Vancouver on Thursday where we will have a second rendezvous.

To get here I departed Long Beach at 11:15 Saturday and overnighted in Sacramento. Left there at about 7 am and had a pretty easy 468 mile drive to Eugene. I even got in early enough to do some actual walking and see the campus.

When Kerry gets back to Vancouver the real fun starts! Kerry is training for the Moab 200 Ultra Marathon, which is actually 238 miles this year and is in mid-October. He has four days to get in some serious training, and is currently selecting from a menu of endurance runs around places like Mount Baker, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Hood. Just the kind of thing that Full Tilt Ward likes to do when he has a little time to spare.

My role will be to be the driver to get Kerry (and friends, hopefully) to starting points and pick them up at the ends of their runs. Of course, one of the items on my bucket list is to be able to actually pace Kerry on a segment of up to 20 miles, but that day is still in the future!

It is now Monday morning, and this Starbucks once again is rather heavenly. I took a census a few moments ago, and of 9 individuals sitting and working, 7 were very lovely ladies! My day is shaping up. I need to be at Sea-Tac airport around 9, and it is only 4 hours away, so I am searching for a mid-day group Pilates or Gyrokinesis class in Portland, or post-working hours classes in the Seattle area. Any help is appreciated!