Trip Preliminaries

4:00pm-pst. A mere 2 hours of sleep. 4:00am wake up. I am tired. The first leg of our journey took us to the Milwaukee International Airport. Or the Taj Wisconsin as I’ve nicknamed it. Who new the Milwaukee Airport would be so nice? New and very clean and fantastic tile work. We thank you, Milwaukee for your 1 hour hospitality. On to Seattle. What a flight. 4-hours in the air. I sat in the very last seat in the back of the plane with screaming 4 year olds. I didn’t sleep at all. I did, however, come to find out that Chad was sandwiched between two lovely ladies and apparently got a solid 3 hours of sack time. Whatever.

The first adventure injury of the trip, and hopefully the last occurred today. And I must say at a rather unexpected location; Baggage Claim No. 1. After a long day of flying I was eager to grab some Advil from my bag. It was around this time that I suffered a double paper-like cut on my left index finger. I didn’t notice it until I went to reach for my cell phone and noticed it was covered in blood. I am okay.

On the way to the taxi stand we ran into a poor man who had been looking for his rental car for 45 minutes. We provided the requisite 30 seconds of empathy and then went on our way.

I keep looking at the Washington license plates and thinking, “Man they drove a long way”. And then I remember where I am.

We picked up our rental mini van from Enterprise 2 miles north of the airport. We saved $500 by not renting at the airport. Our $17 taxi ride was definitely worth it. The mini van is equipped with stow-away seats to give us plenty of room for all our shit.

Picked up our bikes from Cycle Therapy in Kent, WA where Bob Smith signed for them. We had them shipped out 10 days ago and they arrived on Monday. Bob was not at the store when we were there but his friendly colleague helped us out. The duct tape I used on my bag (brand new bike bag by the way) held during the trip. We took the bikes out to inspect, making sure no repairs would be needed, and packed them in the back of the van. We (read: I) nearly forgot my tires at the store.

We stopped at target and bought $300 worth of food and supplies. Cooler, propane lantern, propane grill, propane, air mattress, pillows, food, beer etc. Chris, our cashier from Target was very excited about our trip.

$4.50 gallon.

We are averaging 1/4mile per firework stands.