Long day ...

After the Fosser's made the best breakfast ever we were off to start our second day of biking. Our destination was a camp site near Shelton, WA. It was cloudy alll day long. Although there were beautiful sights all around us it didnt look anything like the day before when it was hot and sunny. Luckily we didnt get rained on when we were biking.

After biking for 95miles (and getting lost a couple times) we finally arrived at the camp grounds, just in time for the rain to start. As I type this entry I am sitting in the car and it is raining big time :( Camping would be sooo fun if it was not raining... Oh well! It will just make us tougher! haha. We are going to get to bed early tonight because we have a long 100+ mile day tomorrow but our destination is at Steve's house in Toledo, WA. We are excited to meet someone new and to have a dry place to sleep!!

(AndyK helping to get the tent together)

-Pattt

First day on the road!

Our first day was the best day of biking ever!!! It was 70degrees and sunny. Washington State is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. There are lakes, bays, trees, and snow capped mountains everywhere.

(Beautiful biking out of Bellingham, WA)

Jesse's cousin, Jen, biked with us for the first 50miles and our good friend Dell who helps us get ready for the SkiToSea race that we just finished biked the entire day with us. We finished with about 80miles. We had to take a ferry across a lake to get to Port Townsend. Wow! that was fun.

(Dell, Jen, Pattt, Jesse, Adam)

When we arrived in Port Townsend we went right to the local bike shop. PT Cyclery was great! The owner was all excited about what we were doing and like all other bikers do he warned us that the fixed gear bikes are going to destroy our knees. I hope he is wrong :) We got a sticker for our car, got Jesse's front tire trued up and then we biked to the Fosser's house.

(Adam, PT Cyclery Owner, Pattt, Jesse)

The Fossers were the nicest people ever made!! They gave us a tour of the town, fixed an AMAZING dinner, and let us use their washing machines to wash our dirty clothes. It was sooo nice to have such fun people to hang out with and to be able to relax. It was a perfect day!!

(Adam, Mr. and Mrs. Fosser, Jesse, Pattt)

-Pattt

The Day Before We Leave!

We are starting out trip tomorrow!!!!! We leave from Bellingham, WA! It is going to be incredible. Our first stop will be to visit Howard and Adele Fosser in Ft. Townsend!

We have already met so many amazing people and we havent even started yet. Here in Bellingham we were treated like royalty by Jesse's relatives and we had a blast at the Ski to Sea race. Ski to Sea is a race that starts at the top of Mt. Baker and goes all the way to Bellingham Bay. There are 7 legs in the race: cross country ski, downhill ski, down mountain run, road bike, canoe, mountain bike, kayak. We had to borrow a kayak and cross country skiis from two of the nicest people in the world!

(Jesse, Pattt, Mr. and Mrs. Cook)

Mr. and Mrs. Cook, who don't know us at all, are friends with Jesse's relatives and they let us borrow their kayak and skiis. They were all smiles the entire time and came out to support us in our race! We can only hope that everyone else we meet during our travels will be as awesome as the Cooks and all the other people we have met in Bellingham!

-Pattt

Biking in Bellingham!!

Adam and I have been biking all over beautiful Bellingham, Washington! It is sooo gorgeous here. Even thought it spatter rains every day all day and it is only 55 degrees it is still a great place for biking. Everyone bikes here. There are bike racks on every corner and every bike rack is stock full of bikes. The drivers are also extremely acostume to seeing bikers on the road and they are very polite.

(Adam looking out over a beautiful view)

We found a huge mountain to bike up today here are some pics of us going up it. For those of you who bike in Ellicot City, Maryland it was as steep at the beginning of Ilchester Road (18% grade) and that steepness lasted for about 1.5miles. It was awesome!

(Pattt biking up mountain)

The Ski to Sea race is tomorrow! And on Tuesday we will start biking across the country!

-Pattt

Arrival in Bellingham, WA

YES!! We made it! PhillyK, Adam, and I arrived in Bellingham WA at 10:00pm local time last night. Here are some stats of our cross country drive:

Car Mishaps:
- The hood of the car nearly flew off but the bungie cords held strong even in the excessive winds
- The car did not start one time when we were at a gas station but we were able to get it going after calling Stump and getting some of his expert advise!

Total Price of Gas:
- $$ I don't know because I don't keep good records of my monetary expenses :) but it was a ton!

Total Trip Time:
- 2 days, 12.5hrs

Total Miles:
- 3,100

Total Losses:
- 1 SideKick owned by PhillyK - MIA
- 1 wallet owned by Suga (Adam) - recovered
- 1 pair of sunglasses owned by Suga - recovered

Total Sicknesses:
- Adam was sick for 12hrs of straight throwing up
- Pattt caught some form of his sickness and was sick for over 12hrs with a fever and aches
- PhillyK was healthy the entire trip :)

Now it is time to relax, bike, run, party, and race in Ski to Sea before leaving for our cross country trek!

(Adam aka Suga relaxing in Bellingham, WA)

-Pattt

Driving from Baltimore, MD to Bellingham, WA

(driving to the start of the bike ride)

PhillyK, Adam, and I are still driving to Bellingham, WA. We are making good time and we drove through the entire night last night!! We think that we have about 700miles left to go! We have left the plains of South Dakota and we are in the beautiful mountains of Montana.

-Pattt

South Dakota Winds!!

(bungie cords, holding us together)

The wind in South Dakota is RIDICULOUS! It must be the strongest wind ever made! The wind in comming directly at us and our AFCMobile has a bad front hood that is secured by two bungie cords. The bungie cords have been holding strong so far but we are scared to go faster than 45mph for fear that the hood will fly off! We might not make it to Bellingham Washington tomorrow night as we had planned.



-Pattt

Second day of driving

(PhillyK outside the AFCMobile)

Adam, PhillyK, and I are still driving on our way to Washington State. We are doing extremely well now and we are making great time. It was a bit rocky yesterday because Adam got reallyyyy sick. We think it was food posioning or something but whatever it was he was throwing up for at least 12hrs. This was especially bad because he is a diabetic!! Luckily his sugar levels never go low, if they had and he couldnt keep any food down we would have had to take him to the hospital or something!

We are all 100% healthy now. Adam is driving as I write this post and we are almost 1/2 the way there. We should arrive in Bellingham, Washington sometime tomorrow night, if everything goes smoothly from now until then.

Keep us in your prayers, especially the car! It is holding strong so far :)

-Pattt

on the road!!!!!

(Adam, Cindy, Jesse, Pattt - the day before we started driving)

AFC 2006 has officially begun! Adam, PhillyK, and I are driving to Washington State in the AFCMobile. It is going to be a longggg ride, especially since the AFCMobile can only do about 35mph up the mountains, with hazards on! Jesse will be flying out on Wednesday to meet us in Bellingham.

Tour De Cure

This past Saturday we all had a great time riding the Tour De Cure, a bike ride in Columbia, MD to help raise money for diabetes. It was a nice hilly course and tons of friends came out to ride it with us! The Tour De Cure is how we will be donating funds to ADA throughout the summer. When you go to our donation page you will see a link for donating to ADA which is really a link to Adam's Tour De Cure page (. ADA told us they will keep this page up and running all summer, even though the Tour De Cure is over... our trek hasnt even started yet :)

-Pattt

Mt. Washington Tavern - Guest Bartending!

Our guest bartending/dinner night at Mt. Washington Tavern was a complete success last night! We raise a lot of money and everyone had tons of fun! Thank you so much everyone who came out and supported us!!