A few pounds lighter

Dear friends and family,

Its been a couple of days so let me give you a quick run down of the developments over the past few days. You may notice that this post is lacking pictures. That's because after a rather greulling day on our way into Brementown, WA we decided to shed a few pounds. Seven and a half to be exact. The obvious first choice was Tim's little laptop. A luxury to be sure, and Tim decided to heed the advice of Lonestar to "Take only what you need to survive." We ditched some rechargeable batteries (sorry environmentalists), the tarp for our bikes (we'll get a hotel if it rains), and a few extra items of clothing. This means that my blog posts will likely be fewer, and depending on the degree of access at libraries, will likely exclude pictures. I'll still keep ya'll posted on what's going on, and if you're really curious and haven't heard from me for a while, give me a call. I'll be glad to talk to someone other than Tim (j/k if you're reading this)!

So here's what's been going on:

On our third night we camped at Deception Pass state park. There we met some other cyclists that reminded us that we're not the only idiots attempting crazy shit like this. The park itself was gorgeous, but the traffic was crazy leading in and out of it, plus it was like a camping hotel, with 300 some odd spots for campers. Getting to the park was an amazing journey. We passed through Chuckanut (hehe) ridge with some spectacular views of the ocean (i'll post pics in the future) and descended into a rather boring coastal plain. There we stopped in for some espresso (rather abundant in WA), and local treats at a sweet spot called Tweets in a town called Bow. We started the first of our island hopping and rode over a seriously windy bridge to Whidbey Island, where Deception Pass is located. The gusts were strong enough to stop us in our tracks! The combination of wind and hills was almost unberable, but the killer views made it worthwhile. I kept pestering Tim to give me a $100 for some hold em in the Indian Casino, but he did not acquiesce.

The next day we rode off on some rather uneventful roads. We did get a chance to stop in at a produce stand on the side of the road, and devoured a couple ice cream cones and a pint of fresh rasberries. If you're wondering how fresh is fresh; they had "day-old" berries on sale! Awesome. We ate a quick PB+H(oney) lunch and rode to catch our ferry to Port Townsend. While waiting for the ferry we chatted with some other cyclists who offered us a chance to stay at their yurt near Port Hadlock when they heard we were planning on camping in the shitty Jefferson County park. They were really cool people and even fed us some leftovers. The yurt was awesome, and I'll certainly post pics of that soon. We also met a couple of younger cyclers from Brooklyn who were sadly going the other way. The chick was riding a long haul trucker too so we obviously bonded.

I already mentioned the shitty hills to Brementown, which even "American-sized" portions at Olive Garden could not help us conquer easily. A miserable hovel of a Navy town, we were glad when the last insane hill out of it was behind us. Since there was no good camping for a few miles, we decided to grab a hotel in Shelton, near Olympia, and do some laundry. I've got precious few minutes on the internet left at this library, so I'll wrap things up (need to check the news). We should hit Oregon in 3-4 days, and hopefully will get a night or two of rest in Portland with Zach and Scott (friends from Vandy). I'm seriously looking forward to Oregon beer, but dreading Oregon hills. Till then, be excellent to each other.