Day 3: Bellingham to Stanwood

Today: 4:00:23 (time of actual peddling); 50.68 miles / 80.09 km; max speed 30.2 miles/ hour

Total Trip (from Grandview Park, Vancouver): 5:27:36 (time); 119.08 miles / 190.53 km; average speed 11.7 m/hr; max speed 36.32 m/hr; average cadence 53

A note... I'm catching up on these blogs long after the fact, so some will be short and sweet:

After our itchy but hilarious night in Bellingham, we got up, had some bagels and after a lot of standing around followed Kyle and Tom from the Hub through a gorgeous bike route, heading south. The path was nice, and the bakery dangerously delicious, but the wind was evil. We biked into a headwind, riding in our lowest gears for hours. We learned to draft. Quickly. The entire road was not flat, windy farmland, though; we got our first taste of how gorgeous biking can be, climbing up and cruising along Chuckanut Drive. The road is windy and high, looking into a tall forest overlooking the ocean. It was a long, but mostly beautiful ride to Stanwood United Methodist Church. One of the best parts was catching the end of the tulip season in La Conner... the photos are for you, mom and dad.



Pastor John presides over a large church, which includes such prayerful items as a pool table and foosball. It also has a HUGE kitchen, which was convenient as a bunch of congregants made us a massive dinner and ate it with us. Our fearless ride leaders, Emma and Jess, gave a presentation about GAFC and microcredit. It was a valiant effort, but we stopped using the PowerPoint after that. Among the cooks were 'Sir Robert' and his son Bob. Anna chatted up Robert for over an hour, getting a brief history of the entire area. She also convinced him to make us breakfast. He and Bob were back int eh kitchen at 5:30am cooking up a mountain of waffles, sausages and eggs. They have business cards that read "at your service." They said if we get lost anywhere between Stanwood and Oregon to call. Anna fell in love with Robert (sorry Colin).



The church also has a library, which was helpful for Shawn Smith as he planned our route to Seattle the next day, apparently a trip just under 60 miles. . . .