Team Teriyaki Donut is Elizabeth Walkup and I, Greg Barnes. We have lived in Seattle continuously since 1998, and off and on for about 10 years before that. We attended the University of Washington as graduate students and both currently work there. We first heard about the Street Scramble through the Walk-In program, although I believe I might have heard about Night and Day in 2003. Originally, I was just going to enter on foot with my then-3-year-old son Omar in a jogging stroller. Elizabeth decided she wanted to join, which meant we had to take our then-10-month-old Emmett. She thought it best to carry him in a baby backpack(!).
We entered the foot division of the University District Street Scramble and stayed out for 3 hours. Our familiarity with the neighborhood was a definite advantage. For example, we'd visited checkpoint #52, the area between the two wooden footbridges in Ravenna Park, many times when we used to live nearby, and knew exactly how to approach it (even with a stroller). Our children were largely no problem, except we had to take a restroom break at Wallingford Center for Omar. After the event, Omar, Elizabeth and I walked home (a couple more miles) with Emmett in the stroller.
We visited 17 checkpoints and got 530 points. We visited all the checkpoints west of Ravenna Ave NE and north of the ship canal, save the nearby #11 and the road end in Woodland Park #35. Our route was basically the checkpoints east and south of the event center, down the Burke-Gilman Trail to Gasworks, up Wallingford Avenue to Green Lake, over to Froula Playground and ending up cleaning up the Ravenna Park checkpoints and some others near the event center. Our raw route:
34 [Christian Science Church], 43 [Burke Museum], 23 [post office], 36 [HUB planters], 10 [Playhouse Theater], 37 [Wall of Death], 51 [kite hill], 46 [Wide World Maps], 20 [Meridian Playground], 53 [Green Lake exercise course], 45 [Froula playground], 12 [Ravenna-Eckstein playground], 52 [two footbridges], 32 [Cowen Park], 44 [R&E], 21 [Blue Onion Bistro], 22 [50th church]
I believe we placed 3rd at the awards ceremony, where we were placed in the mixed foot category. We probably should have been in the family category, but later in the week Terry contacted us and said we'd won the previously-unmentioned Walk-In category. I do remember I picked up a Nalgene bottle in the raffle.
I believe we walked 8.6 miles in 3 hours, which comes out to 2.9 miles/hour. Not bad for someone carrying 20+ extra pounds on their back.
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