Day 196 – Summer Activities

Bend is always bustling in the summer and this weekend it is in overdrive.  I got up early this morning (which is hard for me to do on the weekend) so I could go down to the river to photograph the start of the Bend Splash and Dash.

There are several events catering to all levels of fitness and the first event to start was the olympic distance triathlon.  It started with a 1500 meter swim in the Deschutes River, then a 25 mile bike ride and a 10 kilometer run.  This event brought back many memories because I had done the same distance triathlon in Hawaii about 30 years ago.

The Deschutes River is cold, so I have to commend anyone who will go into the cold water early in the morning to swim.  Most people were wearing wetsuits but there were a few diehards that didn’t.

I had a hard time photographing the bicyclists – mostly because by the time I got to the transition area, most of the cyclists were already gone.

I didn’t stay around for the running portion because I wanted to go to see Kent Couch take off in his lawn chair balloons.  You may have read about him in the past – he takes off in a lawn chair tethered to several hundred helium balloons.  His contraption has become much more sophisticated since he first took off in 2007.  This year he had a another passenger with him – Fareed Lafta, an Iraqi adventurist.  You can read more about it here.  They’re hoping to set a distance record this year, but as I’m writing this the thunderclouds are starting to form.  Hopefully they won’t be caught in a thunderstorm.

Also this weekend is the Bend Summer Festival but I probably won’t get there to take photos until tomorrow.

Maralee