Leaving Olympia-Off to Elma

Our ride to Shelton (30 miles) was fairly easy, but we were certainly pooped by the time we settled into a little deli and began to chow down on our hot rueben sandwhiches. I called my parents to check in and told them we'd me staying there for the night. Then we met Chris, a cyclist who came into the deli. He asked us where we were going and we got to talking. He and a friend are riding from Canada to Mexico to promote their organization called, "Take Your Bike" (the name of the organization is the answer to the question, "Going somewhere?"). We bought a couple of wrist bands from them, and gave them our Coasting card so they could check in on us. Their website is www. takeyourbike.org - check it out!

So basically, after we heard that they'd left Seattle that day and were planning on being in Olympia that afternoon, we decided to push on ourselves. Who knew I had 30 more miles in me?
We got into Olympia yesterday evening at exactly 7pm. Robert (my dad's cousing) and his wife Linda welcomed us with open arms, a hot shower, pub food at the Fish Tail in downtown, and much more.

Right now Lyon and Linda are wrapping up our new tenor Ukulele that we bought an hour ago. The first layer is just plastic, and then they're stuffing it in a garbage bag. The owner of Capital City Guitars downtown asked Lyon "is it a love connection??" and Lyon had to reply that, yes, it was a love connection, before the guy would sell it to him. It's small and light and we'll strap it to the back of our load.

This morning we woke up achy, but after moving around I feel alright. Linda made us very strong coffee which was a blessing after the horribly weak coffee served at the hostel in Seattle. And Robert made a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs with veggies and potatoes on the side. We have basically been eating machines for the last 3 days. It's fun being starving before every meal I eat. We're only planning to ride 30 miles today, and we're hoping to be on the road by 2pm (that's 45 mins from now). It's supposed to rain today, so we're going to get to it! I think we'll stay in a hostel in Elma.

We're being sent off with a nice bag of peanuts (still in their shells!) two peaches, oh- and clean clothes! Thank you!!!

Off we go. It's starting to sprinkle.