Our Engagement

Sometime after Dustin moved to Washington, he had this dream of running down the entire Oregon Coast. It sounded a little crazy… to carry a pack with all of your stuff, and to run a marathon a day for two whole weeks. But no one was going to convince him not to do it (even though his grandma tried) and in September of 2015, he finally made it happen. He did training runs at Alki, running miles back and forth on the beach. He bought some new gear, we dehydrated food, and he had maps for all 14 days.

Dehydrating blueberries and beets!

He started over Labor Day weekend (2015). We drove to Portland on Friday night and then on Saturday, drove to Astoria where he started his adventure.

After his first day of running just over 26 miles, I met him in Cannon Beach for dinner and we camped out in an RV park. 

After his run on Sunday, I splurged on a night at the Econolodge in Garibaldi, which is right near Tilamook. On the last part of his run, he had to take a ferry across a river to this fishery. He decided he was done for the day, so I picked him up and we had pizza! 

On Monday morning, I drove him back to the Fishery and he ran the 8 miles back to the motel. He got his pack and we said our goodbyes. I felt sad and a little nervous to leave him alone for the next week. After a few tears and some heartfelt words, he was off and running.

On my way back to Seattle, I stopped in Portland for a run, some lunch, and vegan cheese!

Wednesday was my birthday and I felt the best way to start the day was a long 20 mile run into work. Hayley took me for coffee and I was bombarded on Facebook and my phone with messages and funny videos (mostly involving animals) which I later found out that Dustin had asked people to do. Shortly into the workday, three dozen Mighty-O donuts were delivered to the office. Dustin made it a wonderful birthday, even from hundreds of miles away.

I met him the weekend in between, staying overnight in Eugene on the way. I listened to a lot of books on CD on the hours upon hours of driving.

Before leaving Eugene, I picked up some delicious vegan food from the Cornbread Cafe, then drove to the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park to set up camp. I put up the tent and for the very first time, set up the blow-up mattress in there. I wanted it to be comfortable for Dustin, since he'd already had such a long week. And to be honest, I realized that is the best way to sleep in a tent! 

On Sunday, I met Dustin about 12 miles into his run to give him his pack before driving back home

I took the next Friday off of work, driving to Oregon on Thursday night, then driving to the Oregon/California border early Friday morning. Dustin only had about 8 miles to cover that day and would finish early. My plan was to get there in time to meet him and run the last couple miles with him. He had said he wanted to make sure he reached California, so using my phone map as best as I could, I found the border of the two states in the sand and made a line it. I wanted him to have a finish line.

I ran about two miles before meeting up with him. He was in good spirits and as we got to the last stretch on the beach, I started filming him on my phone. He had his Go-Pro out and was also filming the last part of this adventure. We finally made it to my make-shift finish line and after a few pictures, he started in on a speech. He didn’t even take his pack off. He was standing there, telling me how wonderful I was and that he couldn’t have done this whole thing without me. I kept saying thank you, but he just kept talking and that’s when I realized he had mounted his Go-Pro on his backpack strap, and it was facing me…. Then he was pulling out a box and getting down on one knee.

I was shocked…. To say the least. I hadn’t been expecting this at all. I said yes, after my brain was finally able to comprehend what was happening. He gave me a ring that he had picked up on the coast and told me we could get a real one as soon as we were back home. This ring had a dolphin on it and he had carried it with him from Bandon, Oregon.

I had champagne in the car to celebrate him being done with this wacky adventure, and now we got to celebrate two things.

After some champagne, and when the shock had worn off a little, we were back in the car and heading to Bend. I heard on the drive that he had actually talked to both of my parents two nights before, asking for their blessing with his plan. We both made a lot of phone calls on the drive, and people were very excited.

We spent the night in Bend, Oregon and met up with some friends at a brewery for some dinner. The next day we got to go and tour the chimp sanctuary where Kevin worked. It was incredible! They are amazing animals – even when they tried to spit on us.

A few weeks after returning from Oregon, I finally made a decision about a ring.