This morning I woke up to the sun shining on my face as I slept on the couch in Chad & Sunny’s living room. After fixing a yogurt parfait breakfast with granola and fresh berries, courtesy of Sunny, I went to the local bike shop in the morning to take care of some maintenance for my teammates’ bicycles with Sarah and Zaid. We bumped into this neat logo as we were venturing downtown.

After the bikes got tuned up, we went to a local restaurant called Doug Firs, which turned out to have some delicious food! I got the chicken pesto baguette with salmon chowder, and it was delicious. It also had a neat lounge adorned with mirrors in which we could hang out in.

Doug Fir lounge corridor

After returning from lunch and dropping off the bikes, we headed back out via Tri-Met to go downtown and look around. Sarah left to go visit with Wayne, a member of the camera crew who is returning to Austin, in the NW 23rd shopping district, while Zaid and I ventured to get some Stumptown Coffee and visit Powell’s Bookstore, the world’s largest independently owned bookstore. It was absolutely amazing!!! Even with a time crunch, we stayed there for an hour and looked around. I ended up buying a few books for my teammates, a Powell’s bookstore T-shirt, and Richard Preston’s “The Wild Trees”—a book on the redwoods of California.

Water fountains?

At the famous stumptown coffeehouse

Powell's city of books - Look at all those categories!

868 – powells books, best book store EVER

Afterwards, we headed back east of the river to meet up with the Texas Exes for dinner at the Hopworks Urban Brewery or HUB. On the way, we saw this street sign--totally taken from "Keep Austin Weird."

For dinner, we had a WIDE assortment of pizza, and nearly all you could drink beer for those of age. It was a good time, and the perfect send off from Portland. Tonight was also the last time I’d see Wayne for a while; we’ve grown to be good buds, and I’ll definitely miss him.

Chad, Sunny, and the team at HUB

Last time seeing Wayne for a while!

Right now, I’m sitting in Chad and Sunny’s living room catching up on blogs as Zaid watches the Colbert Report on TV. Tomorrow we ride to Washington. I can’t believe we’ve come so far already. Hope you all are well back home. Talk to you all again soon!