The local organizing committee was apparently overwhelmed and unable to get things off the ground in time, and a group of prior rally committee members made the call. The NWTR is run much same way year to has the MTR, relying on volunteer host committees to bid for and host the rallies, and dependent, to some extent, to prior rallies to provide seed money to keep things running.
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| Tyler, Linda and I at the NWTR `94 |
I have some connections with the NWTR, having attended 4 of them (1992-Albany, OR, 1993-Mount Vernon, WA, 1994-Portland, OR, and 1995-Victoria, BC). I was the NWTR Treasurer in `93, since Mt. Vernon is only about 30 miles south of Bellingham, our home at the time, and I was organizing a small tandem group there. And has a favor to the 1995 organizer, I emceed their banquet.
For 1993, along with being the NWTR treasurer, I had the interesting experience of having the husband and wife rally chairs reveal and start their marriage separation the weekend of the rally. I ended up taking over a bunch of stuff at the last minute, including the usual rally crises. This was made all the more interesting since Linda and I were tandeming with our 9-month-old son Tyler in his Burley trailer.
On the first day, we rolled into one rally food stop that had not been restocked with food as scheduled, but did have a private Expresso truck on site - after all, this was the Northwest. There were about 30 teams with us, all looking for some of the promised rally provided snacks at the last sag out, so I walked up the truck, rally checkbook in hand, and asked "How Much for Everything?" After a little negotiating, I purchased all of their remaining muffins, biscotti and snacks, and we managed to get a little something to the remaining teams.
This was after we learned that our paid-in-advance sag stop at a school in Bellingham (a NWTR jinx?) had never opened, the responsible janitor having decided to call in sick (or well - again, this is the Northwest) - since it was an unusually beautiful day in the Bellingham. This left every team on the long route looking for water and public restrooms, after having already ridden through Bellingham to the sag.
Finally, that same evening, I was drafted as emcee of the rally banquet when neither chair would stay for the banquet, I had to do this with our son Tyler, on my back in his kiddie-pack, where he had fallen asleep. Tyler was still rather colicky at that age, and we never, never woke him up.
The rally ended up well, all things considered, but the committee never got together to celebrate. I never heard from either of the rally chairs again. I passed on our seed money to Portland, and then donated the remaining funds to a group in Seattle that worked with visually impaired stokers.
Sorry to hear that Bellingham won't be a host. With Chuckanut Drive, a scenic route along the San Juan Islands, and just a 10 mile jaunt from the Canadian border through Lynden, WA, home of some very memorable bakeries, Bellingham is truly a beautiful area to set a rally. Better luck next time.
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