Race 10 - Day 10
Crew Diary - Race 10 Day 10: Seattle to Panama
10 May

I open ‘The Big G’ diner at 06:00 every day, just in time to catch the night shift workers as they trundle off to bed. Bleary eyed and weather beaten from their outdoor jobs, they slump heavily on to the wooden benches with a palpable sigh of relief. Tales of the nights passage waft through the close coupled tables of my traditional style Midwest diner all to the background of my eclectic country rock music collection.

‘Play my favourite song’ cries Ado Helms, referring to the Creedence song ‘Lost In Lodi’.

Right on time, the door opens and in trundles the retired airline pilot. He takes his usual seat by the rear window and I’ve already served him his regular coffee and toast. Graham will spend the rest of the morning tapping away on his iPad...on one cup of coffee. It’s amazing how a good internet connection can draw in the customers.

‘No bacon, only porridge, again??’ grumbles Ray as he squirts a days supply of honey onto the bowl of oats. Phil tells another one of his jokes with a muffled response from the punters.

Silence falls across the tables as a group of girls wander in and order coffee and croissants. They must be kidding. New to the area, they probably work in the local fabric store who’ve recently taken on seamstresses from overseas. It’s a mixture of ‘Bridget Jones’ meets ‘Thelma and Louise’....if you get my drift.

Our local farmer has perked up by now and diverts his attention towards the giggling group offering to give them a lift to work on his Massey Ferguson.

Ronni Callsmoor was late, crashing through the door at 06:55. ‘I’ll have what’s going, a bit of everything’ he exclaims in an excited hurried tone.

Ronni had a difficult job running a school for mature students, the waifs and dropouts of society searching for the meaning of life, some of whom had made a ‘handbrake turn’ at one of life’s crossroads and then found themselves signing up for yet another of Ronni’s crazy outdoor challenges.

By the time the shutters were coming down, the last customer was easing themselves from the bench, jacket in hand. The logo on the back looked worn and faded but ‘The Race of Your Life’ was faintly visible in silver lettering. I stopped and wondered what it meant? Was life a race? Winners and losers? Or did it refer to a torrent of water?

Maybe another one of Ronni’s crazy ventures, I thought. Must ask him tomorrow.