After a restful sleep, we work up to another great chat with our hosts and had a quick breakfast of fruit and yogurt – this seems to be quickly becoming a favourite for us.

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Bill and Renee had both planned to cycle with us for a bit this morning, but Bill was called in to his work, so after seeing him off, Renee continued along with us to show us how to get onto the Interurban Cycleway that would take us to Alderwood Mall, where we needed to get a few things done. Even though she had a dentist appointment later that morning, Renee showed such great kindness by riding with us the entire 15.64 miles to the mall – amazing!

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Being a quick rider, she let me know later that she still made it back in time for her appointment – thanks again so much, Renee! We hope to meet up with you on STP!

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We had a couple of things to accomplish while at the mall, most importantly getting a new sim card for my phone so we could communicate with people while on the road. We had our own phone numbers put to sleep while we are away from Canada, and have had no phone since the beginning of July. It was kind of nice to not have any way of connecting electronically, but in this day and age, and particularly as we have children back home, we really need some way of keeping in touch.

Having accomplished our goals and having a light lunch, we set out for our next host’s home, a short distance away. We were going to be arriving much earlier than we had planned, so we found a little park nearby to sit and have a little rest. The park was just a little neighbourhood park, tucked away with nothing really special about it, but we found a little meadow surrounded by trees and put up our chairs. It was one of those moments that I think we will have a lot of (at least I hope we do!) where you can just sit back and enjoy the world around you without having to stress about schedules, commitments or the hustle and bustle of city life. The birds and dragonflies few around us, the breeze gently blew causing wind chimes in a neighbouring home to lull us with their soft song. It was really a magical little period of time that we most deeply appreciated. Eventually, a woman with her two small children came down to use the bathroom nearby. They said hello and then went back up the hill, only to reappear a few minutes later. It seems that the little boy was curious about us and wanted to talk. We had a precious conversation with them before they finally headed off and we reloaded out bikes to head off to meet our next host, Jean.

Jean was looking for us as we arrived, not wanting us to head down the very steep hill that her home sits on. We pushed the bikes up her driveway and met not only Jean, but her beautiful Collie, Arrow. Jean is also a very experienced cycle tourist and we had many things to talk about. As it turned out, she is also a volunteer for the STP ride that we would be doing on Saturday! She had to go to a meeting at REI for volunteers, and as we needed to pick up a few things, after quick showers, we came along with her for this. The drive down was pleasant and filled with stories she shared about growing up in this area of Seattle. As I also grew up near Seattle (in the south end), we had much to compare. When we arrived at REI, Jean took us up with her and asked if we would be allowed to get our ride packets a little early, saving us another trip into the store later in the week. We left her to her meeting and set about finding the small things we needed, which included a new chair for Jim as his broke just as we were packing up to leave our little park earlier that day! Having finished our shopping, we had dinner at the wrap bar in REI and settled down for the short wait for Jean to finish.

It had been a long and lovely day, and as we arrived back at Jean’s house fairly late (for us, that is!), we turned in for the night. The beds she provided were so comfortable and we both quickly fell asleep. Another lovely evening with yet another wonderful Warmshowers host!