The premise of the event is as follows: Run around downtown with a paper "passport" that you get stamped at different locations (usually businesses). You must return within the allotted amount of time. For every stamp you obtain, you get a raffle ticket for some cool prizes. And, it's all free! Sounds fun, right?
Attending On Your Feet Friday is even better now that I live downtown. It means that I don't have to try to find a parking spot (not a fun task on a Friday evening) and I only have to walk about 2 blocks to arrive at the meeting area. Super convenient.
This Friday evening was sweltering hot. I think it was hovering around 100 degrees. I put on some shorts, slathered on sunscreen, tied my hair up, filled my water bottle with ice water, put on my sunglasses, and headed out the door to Pioneer Trust Bank's parking lot, which is right next door to Gallagher's.
When I arrived around 6:20pm, the usual scene met me. There were lots of people in brightly colored running gear, and a few local vendors selling food, alcohol, or giving away free snacks. There's also always one shoe manufacturer at every OYFF. They have an area set up where participants can try on/try out a pair of their shoes for the night.
I signed a form and grabbed my passport and waded through the crowd to find my friends.
The locations on the passport change every month, though there's always a stop at the globe (a literal large globe) in Riverfront Park, and a stop across the pedestrian bridge that spans the Willamette River. All the rest of the stops are at various downtown businesses. It ends up being a fun way to explore Salem and get introduced to new places I've never checked out.
I myself am not, shall we say, directionally gifted. And, even if I knew where the locations were, I'm probably not the best person to chart a course. My favorite type of OYFF is when someone else figures all that out and I just follow :). We took a look at the map they had posted, and thankfully one of my friends figured out our route for us.
When 6:30pm hit, we were all off! Nowadays I just walk at OYFF, but quite a few people run it. (I used to run it back in the day when I was attempting to be a runner.) You can usually reach most of the locations by 7:15pm, the rendezvous time, just walking. But, if you want to hit all of them, you almost always have to run to make it possible.
We made our way across the street to Riverfront Park to the globe for our first stamp.
My water bottle was definitely my friend in the heat.
Then we headed to ABC Music for stamp #2 - where we also met up with another one of my friends who joined with us.
From there it was on to stamp #3 at Create A Memory (a pottery painting place). The highlight of getting that stamp was the fact that the person doing the stamping was sitting next to a fan, and as he stamped your passport, he also squirted a spray bottle at the fan so that you'd get a nice mist :). That was very thoughtful since we were all overheating. Then we went into the alley behind my apartment building for stamp #4 at 1859 Cider Co, a cider taphouse. We headed down the street to Ricky's Bubble and Sweets for stamp #5, then over to Deja Vu Salon for stamp #6. Through all this downtown traversing, it's always fun to see other people with their passports scrambling to get them stamped or figure out their next stop too. Kinda makes you feel like a part of something cool :)
We paused for a minute to evaluate the amount of time we had left and the fact that the next stop was further away, but we decided to go for it. We walked south through Pringle Plaza and got to briefly see the resident ducks who like to hang out around the Italian restaurant, Gamberetti's.
Eventually we made it down the street to the Waterplace building (I love the look of that building, very modern) for stamp #7 from CB2 Architects. I ended up with 7 of the 8 stamps, yay :) Hint - if you are going to walk and want to get the most stamps possible, I'd recommend avoiding the stop across the pedestrian bridge. That's definitely the longest one and will use up a lot of your time. That's the only one we didn't hit.
Then we crossed the street by the civic center and started making our way back to the meeting place. As we went, I appreciated the water view that was available to us. I love that downtown Salem is urban but with a mix of natural elements. What can I say, we're Oregonians :). I also enjoyed the sultry summer sunset as well as some pretty flower beds outside of the convention center.
We made it back to the parking lot just in the nick of time (I think it was 7:14pm), turned in our passports for raffle tickets, and waited around for the prizes to start.
While we waited, LifeSource (an awesome natural foods store in south Salem) had free samples as well as whole carrots, stems and all. We munched on our carrots as the temperature got cooler.
While I waited, I also looked longingly at the condos I would love to live in. Don't get me wrong, I love my apartment, but I would also love to have one of these condos overlooking the park with a sunset view every night.
Before too long, John Gallagher was up on the stairs above the crowd ready to start the raffle. The prizes vary from month to month. The businesses that house each stop almost always donate a couple prizes, Ventis (a Salem restaurant) seems to always have a few too, and whoever is the shoe sponsor for the night donates goodie bags as well as the crowd pleaser - shoes! Yes! They really do give away multiple pairs of running shoes every time!
This month the prizes included things like a candy basket from Ricky's Bubble & Sweets, a restaurant giftcard (to Orupa) from CB2, multiple growlers (with free growler fills) from 1859 Cider Co, a massage (? think that's what the prize was) from Deja Vu, a "spa day for your guitar" from ABC music, a free entry into an upcoming run, a ceramic shoe to decorate from Create A Memory, and I think Ventis was giving away water bottles with giftcards inside. New Balance provided the shoe and goodie bag prizes.
The raffle drawing is a pretty long process and they aim to finish by about 8pm. To break up the monotony of listening to numbers being read, there are usually two portions of the evening where they throw prizes into the audience. This night was no different and water bottles and T-shirts went flying. I wasn't paying attention because I figured I was too far back for anything to reach me, but then my friend yelled my name and I looked to see a water bottle on a collision course with my face. My first inclination is always to cower (I almost got hit in the head with a baseball at a Volcanoes game one time because of this) so I ducked. Needless to say, I did not get a water bottle. However, my friend did end up with one later!
As usual, I eagerly listened to all of the ticket numbers, but didn't win anything. Out of all the times I've attended, I've never won a prize. I did think of a good tip for next time, though. I finally realized that I should really try out a pair of shoes because everyone who does so gets a special raffle ticket for a special drawing for shoes. I think that only 70 people get to try shoes out, so that means I'd have a 1/70 chance instead of a 1/a-lot-more-than-70 chance of winning. Note to self.
Also as usual, even though I didn't win anything, I had a great time. It's a good way to get some exercise, spend time with friends, be a part of a larger group, check out local businesses, and enjoy some fresh air. I will keep coming back for more.
My fun for the night did not end here, it was just getting started! To be continued in a future blog post :)
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