Weekend in Seattle

Besdides looking really silly carrying two and half terribly unwieldy gear bags each, Letty and I arrived in Seattle on the 19th without any problems and headed straight to our hostel in downtown called the Green Tortoise. They fed us dinner that night and breakfast the next morning for free. It was a great stay! We met one interesting guy who taught us the importance of the frontal lobe in determining the fate of the cosmos and another bunch of people who were in Seattle that weekend strictly for the purpose of riding their bikes naked in the city's annual parade. There were certainly some characters, but we enjoyed them.

The next day, the 20th, Letty and I headed out to Recycled Cycles bike shop to be reunited once again with our noble and beloved steeds. The shop took great care of us, although they charged me an arm and a leg and probably a good number of what could have been great meals on this trip. Once we were all geared up, tuned up, and looking fancy again on our hott bikes, we began our ride toward the ferry terminal where we would set off to visit our good family friends, the Rome family. With all our luggage, we knew that we were in for a challenge when it came to boarding the ferry with a bike each, so we conceived this plan to bring oursleves and our luggage onto the ferry first and then have one of us go back to fetch the bikes and bring them onto the bottom of the ferry with the rest of the bikes, motorcycles, and cars. We shared our plan with a few ferry terminal employees and felt it was surely foolproof. We got our bags onto the ferry without a problem and I turned around immediately to get off the ferry and go to fetch the bikes and bring them below. I ran as fast as I could in my bike shoes to get the bikes and as I was unlocking them I could hear in the distance a voice on a loud speaker saying something about "a girl in a yellow shirt with two bikes," and "wait for he." So I was feeling pretty good about everything, confident I'd make it onto the boat at least. Well, i finally managed to wheel the bikes to the back of the boat when I realized the gate was already closed. I stood 30 feet from the back of the still docked ferry pleading for two minutes with the ferry worker there to let me on, but they were feeling quite unsympathetic that day I noticed. As the ferry began to move slowly away fromt he dock, I saw Letty come out the back of the boat and wave to me. That was when I remembered that I had left my phone on the boat as well. I called out to her as loud as I could, "Call Merit Rome, Call Merit" but I think all she heard across the water was a desperate little "Eet Eet." And then she was gone, with all our bags, as I stood there with both our bikes, and we just waved somberly to eachother as the expanse of water between us grew bigger. It was like being in a sad old war movie. Anyway, it all turned out ok as Letty got the hint and called Merit to warn her that I would be on the next ferry, and Letty had a fella help her get all of our bags off the boat. We ended up having a great weekend with the Romes, with plenty of incredible food and wine served throughout. We probably should not have been so spoiled right before 48 days of PB&J's and hard-core camping, but I wasn't complaining!

Sunday the 22nd, we were back in Seattle to meet the Big Ride group for the first time and to stay overnight at the University of Washington. It was a little awkward at first meeting everyone and wondering how the Summer would pan out with all these characters, but Letty Catie and I were relieved instantly to see that we would not be the only three stupid college kids who had jumped into high water; there were plenty of dumb kids just like us, and many of them admitted that they had not trained nearly enough either. I was super greatful we weren't going to be the only dingbats. I'm not gonna lie! It was interesting to see that the group demographic would be split pretty solidly between the 15 or so college age kids like us, and then the 40 years and above group comprised mostly of seasoned cyclists. It was going to be an unusual group dynamic!