Maybe He'll Nap's route

Team "Maybe He'll Nap" is supposed to be me (Elizabeth) pulling Emmett in the trailer, but with Omar's arm broken, Greg has sometimes claimed Emmett to keep Teriyaki Donut's family bike standing safe from blemish. I roped one of Emmett's best friends (and her dad) in for "Maybe (S)He'll Nap" in Everett. Today, I walked with Omar and we joked that since we were walking, we might stop for a treat and our name would be "Maybe He'll Snack".

Omar chose the route with only minor kibbitzing on my part, and likewise did the lion's share of navigation for the first half. Not surprisingly, with fatigue, his willingness to context switch between map reading and slogging is not so great.

The first hour was checkpoints 21 35 47 46 28 34. Omar started asking for his snack as we were en route to checkpoint 28. Looking at the map I erroneously guessed that there would be plenty of businesses along 50th and suggested we wait until then.

Walking along 50th, heading to checkpoint 38, we realized (a) there weren't a lot of places to munch, and (b) we were going to have to detour to get safely across 15th Ave. We therefore added to our route "checkpoint zero, taco wagon, NW corner of intersection, which tastes better: two chorizo tacos, one chicken loco taco, or a sprite?" Our correct answer "the chicken taco" netted us zero points, took 15 minutes deliberation in the covered eating area to determine the correct answer, and cost us $5.17. ($6 including tip, and we got chips and salsa for free while we waited.) It was by far our favorite checkpoint and we would go back to visit it again.

With half our time remaining, we then slowly visited 38 36 53 29 27. Omar was really flagging on the walk from 29 to 27, so we cut out checkpoint 44. In retrospect, I should have encouraged him more heartily and gone for it -- it didn't take much watermelon and gookinaid to get him tearing around the community center field, so clearly he had it in him.

We had a great time and Omar was very serious about carefully recording his route. I hope Street Scramble will continue on so I can watch him mop up the floor with Greg in ten years or so. Many thanks to Terry, Eric, and all the volunteers!

-- Elizabeth