Seattle: A rushing end

Our ride into Seattle proved to be, perhaps, the hardest of the trip. The hills were steeper and much longer than any we had encountered to that point. We didn't see that one coming. We also got lost. After a while we asked a lady for directions and she just called her husband to drive us down to the Southworth Ferry so we didn't get lost. We were impressed with the kindness.

The ferry came and we rode on. Soon to encounter the city that was our dream all summer. Well, sort of our dream. The ride wasn't as bad as that might imply. Nothing really exciting happened. A pretty girl got on the ferry with us. But then she disappeared and we didn't see her again...I don't think she drowned--nothing in the paper the next day. We must've just missed her.

And so it goes. We rode to our host's home, met his room mate, a German student studying abroad, made some dinner and fell asleep to a movie. They each had studying to do, though the room mate invited us to her friend's CD release party and a few other events around the city that weekend. They were both very friendly.

The next day we were on our own. We explored the city. Morgan walked his bike everywhere, had pizza for lunch, and chilled out. Andy got his friend to get him a free Kayak rental and paddled around the South Lake, along with riding his bike around the city. Matt woke up after both of them and took his time riding around the city, eventually meeting his friend (whom we stayed with the rest of the time) as she got off work. We met up later that night and went to a block party, then a park with a great view of the skyline.

The rest of the weekend we spent figuring out our bikes, shipping, etc for getting back during the morning hours (our host worked the morning hours). During the afternoons we would go to different things: swimming (it was the hottest it had been all summer: 90 +), cooking a huge meal, and going to Mars Hill to listen to Mark Driscoll preach (it might also be noted that our Uncle Steve had some influence in seeing Mark; the other bit of influence was the fact that our host already went there).

Sunday night we also went to a catholic church to hear hymns played by a beautiful pipe organ and different men in the community sing. It was beautiful.

And so that was our last weekend on our bicycles. It was ideal, probably. We all enjoyed ourselves. We enjoyed talking to and learning about our beautiful hosts (they were all women, seven of them, to be exact). We appreciated their hospitality and putting up with our mess as we tried to cram our stuff into big cardboard bike boxes. The whole was bitter sweet. More sweet for some. More bitter for others. The whole weekend was pretty busy though, and there wasn't a lot of time for reflection.

And so the journey ends. It's back to the Americans on the other side of the country--only it'll just take a few hours this time.