Burlington, WA

Hi all, Brendon here,
Today, we made final preparations for the bike trip. We launch tomorrow and are all very excited to finally start the trip. Everything went smoothly today with one exception. Just as I was finishing up cleaning my bike, I discovered that the front gear didn't work. Fortunately, Mr. Mark (my name for Mr. Richardson) and I went to a local bike shop and got it fixed up. The people there were very nice and didn't even charge us in full. People seem very nice when we mention our trip to them. We have found this to be the case the whole trip. We are all really pumped up for the trip. At seven tomorrow, we will dip our tires in the Pacific and embark on our trip! Stay tuned.

Ellie here,
So much going on today! We arrived at our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express in Burlington, Washington, this afteroon to a very pleasant surprise. The people here at the hotel prepared a whole welcome for us, including pizza, a poster, gift bags, and three HUGE boxes of granola bars. We have been so astonished by the kindness and hospitality that people have shown us when we tell them about our cause. It really is incredible.
On a side note, Parker wears his sunglasses whenever possible. I say this only because I looked up from writing this, and he is sitting in the corner of our hotel room writing in his journal wearing his sunglasses. It's a pretty funny sight. When I asked him why he was wearing them, he said "because they make me look fly". Haha, just kidding about that last part.
Another adventure, today we went on our first grocery store trip! The four girls and Dr. Kiley headed out to the store, prepared to find the best bargains. It was a very fun experience. We spent almost an hour cruising through the aisles of "Haggen's", checking out all of the food, trying to figure out what we're going to eat for the next few days. While dancing in the cereal aisle to The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA" I was caught red-handed by an old man who embarassed me by yelling "you go girl!". I promptly hid behind our shopping cart, while the man walked by and laughed at our shenannigans.
Now we're back at the hotel, relaxing and enjoying our last night of fresh muscles. We're all planning on going to bed as soon as possible, so we can be totally rested for our first day of biking tomorrow!