We made it!
This evening around 6pm we rolled back into Seattle's Green Tortoise Hostel, the same place where we started our amazing journey 16 interesting days ago! Truth be told, coming back to Seattle felt a little like coming back home. We recognized the streets, and the people working at the hostel recognized us! It felt good to tell them that we had covered over 450 miles on our bikes since the last time they'd seen us.
Lots has happened since Victoria! We spent two nights in Olympic National Park, where we conquered the mighty Hurricane Ridge--12 miles of uphill biking, leading to a mile-high peak! The views were almost as good as the ride down...
The past few days, we've been biking around the Puget Sound, including one night in Sequim (pronounced SQUIM) Bay State Park, and one night in Port Townsend. Port Townsend was a beautiful, cute tourist town that serves up some of the best pizza we've had in a while! We stayed in a hostel in Fort Worden, an old military camp. The grounds and barracks were really interesting. Some of us walked down to the water and explored the Marine Science Center, where we thoroughly enjoyed the touch pools they had there. We got to pet starfish, coral, anemenies (sp?), and other marine life!
The next night's campsite boasted a nice beach where we harvested oysters and cooked them for dinner! They were delicious. Yesterday we jumped on yet another ferry to Vashon Island, where we stayed in the Vashon Island Hostel--in teepees! We woke up feeling very refreshed, and took a nice, very short hike to a pond and back. After exploring the town and enjoying some free vegetable soup (at the local farmer's market), we hopped on a ferry to lower Seattle, and biked along the water back to the Green Tortoise!
We are looking forward to our last two days as a group, and to spending some more time in Seattle, where we originally began our trek!
Some highlights from the past few days:
--biking up Hurricane Ridge!
--finding slugs EVERYWHERE, naming them, photographing them, and prodding them with sticks
--eating pints of Ben and Jerry's
--singing "Down By The Bay" and "Baby Shark"
--BBQing our weight in meat...and finishing every last bite!
--biking 50 HILLY miles in one day!
--did we mention that we biked Hurricane Ridge??
--hiking to a SPECTACULARLY GORGEOUS lake and swimming in the freezing cold water! (well, some of us did)
--going a full week without doing laundry, and 3 days without showering...
See you soon!
Mariel, Jon, Josh, Dave, Tyler, Zack, Matt, Peter, and Hanna
