Stage 2, Day 17: Opposite Outcomes

Wave Forager mic-drops. Hard.

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Team Wave Forager and Family

We’ve dusted off our old TI-84 graphing calculator from Ms. Johnson’s trigonometry class, double checked our work on our great-grandfather’s abacus, and have determined that Ken Deem has pulled on his oars around a quarter of a million times in the last 15 days. Don’t check our work. It’s correct.

Ken arrived last night at 9:04pm (which in Alaska means in the broad light of day) to the uproarious cheers of local fans, race officials, various people who baked cakes and pies for him, his parents, spouse, and two daughters. Not to mention around 200 online attendees just agog by his accomplishment. This is the first time that a soloist has arrived in Ketchikan via R2AK in a backwards-seated position, and this trick earned him both of this year’s sidebets—The Oaracle Blister Prize for the first human-powered finisher, and the Duckworks Supply 20’ and Under Award—typically awarded to a sailboat under 20 feet, but Ken blew that tradition right out of the water. What did Ken have to say about it?

“That was fun!”

Team Lillian’s Vacation falls prey to the dark side (and bonus chatter)

Team Lillian’s Vacation Grim Sweeper
Team Lillian’s Vacation and her new friend

The ethereal Grim Sweeper, responsible for tidying up the course of racer detritus, began its run from Port Townsend just a few days ago. In R2AK history, the few times the GS has tapped out a racer, it was from behind and up somewhere north of Seymour Narrows. But yesterday something new happened. The multi-day southbound trip of Lillian of Team Lillian’s Vacation, a trip that left us all WTF-ing, was actually a play at confronting the demon head on, and the result? Lillian has joined the crew of the undead and is, as we seek, sharpening her own broom.

Speaking of Lillian, we here at Race High Command receive a great many questions and communiqués throughout the year; some seek clarification of the small handful of rules, and some seek ways to subvert them. No racer in R2AK history has delved so deeply into this practice—no, has transmuted it into an artform—as Lillian Kuehl of Team Lillian’s Vacation née Team Interstice née Team Quillbillians. Lillian has proven herself many things, including a master of self-appointment, and she’s appointed herself the officially-unofficial Poet Laureate, Swear Jar, Taste-Tester, Middle Child, and One-Woman Think Tank of Race To Alaska. For your reading pleasure, and so you might have a deeper look into the mind of the woman herself, we present:

Old Text Messages in the Race Boss’s phone from Lillian:

On ballast pumps:

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On celestial navigation:

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On wildlife:

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On loopholes:

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On the spirit of friendship:

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On running for Hall Monitor of the Salish Sea:

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On loopholes, pt. 2:

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On chafing:

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On bribery and hitch-hiking, or On loopholes, pt. 3:

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On franchising:

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On patronage:

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An exchange between the Race Boss and Lillian immediately preceding her 2022 DNF:

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Kudos, Lillian. Keep ‘em coming, and we’ll keep saying no.

Header photo by Peter Geerlofs