7-21-08 Broadway

Up early. Its break down day…shit. Get out the bike boxes, wrenches, bubble wrap and start breaking bikes down. They did us well. Need to figure out what to do with our crap we accumulated. Here comes Santa. Gave extra propane and new cooler to lady and two kids at adjacent campsite. Gave toilet paper, paper plates, plastic cups and can of soup to gentleman two sites away…who didn’t actually want them but said ‘ehhh…the old lady will collect anything’. Pillows…well it was a toss up between the garbage and Johns Hopkins Biomedical Research Facility. During wholesale giveaways, we were offered a free tent…we declined. Load up the minivan and headed south towards Vancouver. Stopped by a waterfall in Squamish on the way out…took our last vacation pics. How sad.

1 hour wait at the border crossing. Finally back in the U.S. Heading south, first stop is Fedex/Kinkos in Bellingham, WA to ship our bikes back home. Young kid working the desk is a biker himself…nice kid, lots of energy…good for Fedex. Gives us a discount, inadvertently by not measuring the size of Mike’s bike bag which exceeds max size, on the cost of shipping…we used some misdirection by chatting it up about biking…should have been a lawyer…dam it.

Back on the road in search for a hotel. This turned out to be nightmare. Who figures every hotel on the west coast would be booked on a Monday night? Stopped at 5 hotels in Renton, WA and 4 in Kent, WA that were all full...it was Howard Johnson time. It was around this time that Chad wanted to deliberately drive the Knightrider minivan into some large boulders in frustrating fashion to the sounds of GPS Garmin Lady echoing ‘Re-Calculating’ over and over and over again…we didn’t like Renton, WA.

Showered up, trimmed the noise hair and shipped out to Seattle for some eats. Saw the Space Needle for the first time and Safeco Field where, interestingly enough the Red Sox were playing. Settled on the Broadway Grill on Broadway Street. The street was a child born out of Central Sq. Cambridge and Newbury St. Boston. Excellent burgers and hoppy local brews. We’re tired. Time for bed.