Click on a thumbnail sketch to see the full size picture.
The Port Townsend Kinetic Sculpture Race officials announced hospitality party at the Port Townsend Brewing Company for Friday night.
Not knowing what kind of food they would have at the party Dave and I drove Rex over to Safeway to get sandwitches at the deli. While there we gave rides in the parking lot.
At the party I was talking with one of the Kinetic Kops when I learned that there is no limit to the number of pit crew. They do this to encourage local participation. What a neat idea! And I had thought that the wording in the rules was a typo. Silly me. You see, at all other Kinetic Sculpture Races you may have no more pit than pilots. The Port Townsend rule says you should have at least as many pit as pilots.
I immediately started aggressively recruiting. If everyone who expressed interest had followed thru I would have had a throng of 14. Unfortunately they didn't. Margeaux was our pit crew.
It was an outdoor, nighttime party. So I don't have a lot of pictures.
But I gave rides to some folks at the party before heading back.
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Moon over the drydocks |
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John, the Top Kinetic Kop |
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Dave, Rikki, Margeaux, and Allen pose with Frogasaurus Rex |
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While we gave rides on Frogasaurus Rex, some other people were trying out Bounce for Glory. | ||
| Dave gave rides on Frogasaurus Rex. |
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I got some rides in too. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Giving rides in Frogasaurus Rex, with Rylan riding the Tadpole behind. [pictures by Margeaux] |
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Going on a lark with lots of lovely ladies. [pictures by Margeaux] |
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| We also encouraged folks to ride the Tadpole. |
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We were carefully examined by the esteemed Judges. [picture by Margeaux] |
and Kinetic Kops. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Riki with her Wok On The Wild Side [picture by Margeaux] |
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Spirit of Bob - Salt Springs, Canada [picture by Margeaux] |
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Queen Kontestant, Sophia Lowrent. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Judges, I think. That or Queen wanna-be's. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Muckle Flugga's wheel art. [pictures by Margeaux] |
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Photo-op with the fishes and the frog. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Dancers for the parade. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Other creative endeavors sometimes show up at the Kinetic Sculpture Races, such as this decorated truck. [picture by Margeaux] |
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Margeaux riding the Tadpole. | ||
| And then the parade started. Here we see Spirit of Bob; Bounce for Glory; and the Kween's carraige. |
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Henry Ford Goes Surfing | ||
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The two pictures on the left show Bob Durst in Whirled Cup in the parade. The picture on the right shows Sherry Clark and her puppet interacting with the audience. High five! |
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| Frogasaurus Rex in the parade. Margeaux in the near seat. Dave in the far seat. Rylan is in the back seat. |
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| Cute kids. This is why we do it. |
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Magic Bus. And Muckle Flugga |
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Peddlin in Paradise. Banana Boat. And Korsh Komish. |
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| 'A Snowballs Chance' carried snow with them, and used it to pelt everybody with snowballs. |
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I'm not sure I want a prince that big! |
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After the parade we had a good turnout to see if anyone would sink during the float tests. That sometimes happens, but not this year. |
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During the Float test Dave floated an idea with me. The idea was to cheat, taking a water route around a lot of the road race. Here we explored our potential cheat route, straight ahead in the photo. |
We don't often cheat. In Port Townsend cheating is encouraged and honored. And we have been a bit slow getting into the spirit. But this idea from Dave was one for the record books. It was an audacious and inspired idea. And the sort of cheat that makes sense only for a few rare Kinetic Sculptures, ones who are very fast on the water.
Monkey suggested we talk with locals about it to make sure it was safe. I visited Fleet Marine and spoke with folks there. They thought the key was the tide tables and the winds, and gave me a book. The book showed we would be making the traversal at a lull in the tides.
It is really important that we took these steps. Puget Sound can be quite dangerous. People have died out there, caught in the tides and the eddies.
After the official activities (and cheat investigations) were done for the evening I moved about Port Townsend, offering rides on the Tadpole to folks I ran into.
| I don't recommend driving the Tadpole without a hand on the steering. This girl is making me dizzy just watching her! |
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Is it my turn yet? | ||||
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The only control she can reach is the steering. Neither of these girls are going to let their size stop them from riding the Tadpole") |
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Renee, in that last picture, told me of an artist who worked metal. With a little searching I found Christopher Charboneau in the back room of one of the gallerys, showing off his works. They were done by working aluminum and were quite good. He used a combination of wire brush and other scratching instruments. With some searching he had found an alloy of aluminum which didn't dull over time as the surface oxidized. Of course, that detail was a trade secret and I didn't even ask. But we talked a long time and he told me of people who tried to find out.
We also learned of a common interest in physics. He revealed that several of his images were representations of physics, either cosmological events or sub-atomic. Cool stuff. We talked well into the evening.
As I was parking the Tadpole before going into the Coronation Ball I noticed some agitated folks. Seems a woman had driven her car into a window well while trying to park. They weren't too keen on having her drive it out, so they asked me. Understand that they had to lift the car as it was being driven out, since one of the rear wheels had no traction. The woman didn't smell drunk.
After that I joined the line into the Coronation Ball. The Ball was very well attended this year. Before I made it in the door the Fire Marshall stopped the line. Seems the room capacity had been reached. I hear it was very crowded inside. The Coronation Ball is a fund raiser for the Port Townsend race. They must have done well!
As we were eating breakfast we watched the weather. There was a bit of a breeze, and everytime it got worse I considered cancelling the cheat. But by the time the race started the wind and the waves in the sound were calm. We decided to go for it.
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Frogasaurus Rex skit before the start of the race.
Riki and Margeaux joined us on stage.
Dave is at the microphone. I am behind him.
Margeaux is playing the air violin.
The skit,
Port Townsendblanca,
is based on a scene from
Casablanca.
[Picture by Adam Harrison] |
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Laura, Jason, and Peter singing. Janet is immediately to their left. At least Janet isn't covering her ears! |
As we cruised thru the waters of Puget Sound along the race course we still had the option to scuttle the cheat idea. But the weather was quite nice and the water calm. It was just too good an idea to skip.
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As Frogasaurus Rex approached the expected water exit, Dave called out 'Wait, I know a shortcut'. [Picture by Adam Harrison] |
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We then turned around and headed back into Puget Sound, completely skipping the water exit. [Picture by Adam Harrison] |
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Rather than taking a beeline we got in closer to shore, with the idea of getting more wind protection. We ran into some chop for about 1/4 of the traversal, but then it calmed down for the second half and was very nice. The Sheriff's boat passed us far to starboard. We figured they were just patrolling. In fact the KSR officials had asked them to watch us. It wasn't needed. However, we appreciate the concern. As I mentioned earlier, people have died in that area. And judging by how they were boating about I'm pretty sure they knew it. [Picture by Louis Hightower] |
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Exiting the water at the end of our cheat. In the foreground are mannequins which are part of the sand course. [Picture by Chris Yetter ] |
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This map shows our course deviation. We stayed on the orange highlighted course except for the parts crossed out in red. Those sections are replaced with the line in green. Altho the distance traveled is similar, we avoided some killer hills. As a result we cut about 30 minutes out of the course time. |
The Offishul Port Townsend Kinetic Skulpture Race site has also put up a page on our cheat, one which brings tears of joy to my eyes. Please see http://www.ptkineticrace.org/frogasauraus.html
That page prompted this tongue-in-cheek rebuttal from Dave: Rebuttal.html
There is some question as to whether we really did save time taking this route. On the one hand, we arrive about 30 minutes before the next contestant. On the other hand, they were off the clock taking a rest for some of the time we were crossing the bay.
It is also worth noting that we lost that 30 minute lead (at least on our official time) because we were on the clock while we took a lunch break at the sand pit. If we had crossed the sand immediately perhaps we would not have earned the award for Most Time.
But lest you think we are disappointed about this, let me assure you otherwise. We did the cheat simply to show it could be done. We did not do it to get Fastest Time. That was never a consideration. Quoting Dave Isn't there its own glory in knowing you massively cheated AND STILL managed to take the most time?
After grabbing a welcome cup of soup at our unconventional water exit point we crossed the sand, rejoining the rest of the Kinetic Sculpture contestants. Some of them wondered how we beat them to the sand.
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While in the sand we flung little frogs to the spectators.
Using the narrow wheels with cleats,
Frogasaurus Rex had no problem in the mud.
[Picture by Adam Harrison] |
Here are links to more pictures by Chris Yetter.
And here is a blog entry featuring Frogasaurus Rex. http://anansi133.livejournal.com/259301.html
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At the Kinetic Kock we slaughtered Frogasaurus Rex and cut the legs off. We then presented the legs to the judges as a bribe. Frogasaurus Legs; tastes like chicken. You can see the legs behind us in these pictures. We did a couple of skits, including a repeat of Port Townsendblanca. Here we are doing a skit based loosely on Monty Python. [Left picture by Adam Harrison. Right picture by Louis Hightower] |
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After the race I gave away the last two frog legs to Ryan and another boy I didn't recognize. I hope their parents forgive me.
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Monkey getting eaten by Frogasaurus Rex |
We, Frogasaurus Rex, won several awards:
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Frogasaurus Rex team at the award ceremony. Let's hear you say "Ooooo, Ahhhh!" [Pictures by Adam Harrison]") |
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Naughty-Naughty
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Most Time
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Kinetic Kock Star In The Kosmos
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And some other things we picked up along the way.
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The day after the race Dave, Brenda, and I had a lazy, fun day. Brenda took us to Seven Cedars Casino for a meal. She then took us to a local farm where they have a pumpkin shoot.
| Pigs at the farm, eating the remnants of pumpkins. |
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Brenda and Dave doing a pumpkin shoot. |
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Pumpkin shoot. The pumpkins were shot into a field with horses and a barrel. If you got your pumpkin into the barrel you won $200. It's pretty hard to do. |
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| Pumpkin shoot by Allen. I didn't hit the barrel. But I hit one of the horses by accident. Sorry! |
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Restaurant recommendation: Country House Restaurant. Visible from I5 on the West side. Take the Vader, Ryderwood exit. With so many factory food eateries littering the landscape it becomes a pleasure and a suprise to find a restaurant where they actually prepare their own food.
Unless otherwise noted, all pictures above were taken by Allen Brown.
Copyright (C) 2006 C. Allen Brown
