After an amazingly relaxing night in the beautiful city of Olympia, we headed out to Seattle. The ride was beautiful and definitely eventful (including a festival, a ferry ride, and a challenge which came out of nowhere).

The team heading out of church

Riding out of Olympia

A few miles into the ride, David Navar and I made a fun challenge to see who could stay out of our saddles the longest. And so about 15 miles in we were out and grinding away.

The standing challenge begins

Biking so long out of the seat ended up putting a lot of pressure on my hands and definitely strengthened my leg muscles, but I did learn how to climb hills more efficiently.

One steep climb

There’s no doubt that Washington is a beautiful state. Here’s one of the lakes near the coast of WA which we biked past.

Before long, we had gotten to our ferry stop to cross the Puget Sound, both David and I still going strong.

We even biked through an island called Vashon, which was holding a strawberry festival that day (held only ONCE every year), where we got to walk around, meet people, and just enjoy the overly priced festivities.

The highlight of Vashon had to be when David accidently sat on his saddle, out of habit, when we were mounting the bikes. We were about 25 miles into the challenge, and while technically David had lost, I wanted to see if I could ride it out standing the whole way… so I did—for another 20 miles. Upon arriving in Seattle, Joel asked if I wanted to go to church with him and Julian. Having not attended a service since I started, I agreed. It wasn’t long until I found out that we were going to the famous Mars Hill Church, with Pastor Mark Driscoll, to meet a gentleman named Joel Fariss (as opposed to my teammate Joel Farris). Joel Fariss also happens to be a Christian and a drummer. Their story is that a random guy in Seattle had emailed my teammate Joel about a drumming position at Mars Hill, and while he does play the drums, teammate Joel had assumed they had gotten the wrong guy b/c the church was in Seattle. He later found out that They were looking for Joel Fariss, not Joel Farris. Crazy right?

No words can describe how nice of a break it was to spend a set apart time in fellowship.

Joel and Joel

Big Joel ended taking us around Seattle for the night and we got to see some amazing things. We also got to learn more about the demographic/social culture of Seattle, and how the church has grown/changed in the city. Seattle felt like a bigger Austin—where there’s a coffee shop on every street corner, but a great music scene and many “hip” people. Thank you Joel for taking us around for the evening—I am personally so glad we bumped into each other.

Space needle by night

Downtown Seattle by night

Tomorrow is our rest day, and I’m excited to see some sights and retreat for a little bit. Joel recommended checking out Olympic Sculpture Park which I am definitely going to spend some time at. Until then!