Midpoint!

   Yesterday Janelle & I and her sister and cousin road the ferry around the San Juan Islands (specifically visiting Orcas Island and Friday Harbour). That was really fun. Then we visited another of her sisters in the little town of Skagit which was on the way, had some delicious apple pie and ended up playing "apples to apples with her sister's housemate's family (so altogether I think there were like nine of us). That was also rather fun. Then we returned here to Janelle's dad's place in Everett, WA.

   And now the trip south begins! Coming up as we dropped off our riders at their destinations we wittled ourselves down to just Janelle and I, but we're picking up a couple between Seattle and Portland and a backpacker from England who is excited about the prospect of random adventures and wants a ride to SF but maybe even all the way to LA and OC .. so he sounds cool.
   So far everyone from Craigslist has been an interesting and positive contribution to the trip:
Clark, riding from OC to SF Brett and I liked so much we kept talking about him and Janelle was like "I think I miss him too and I haven't even met him"
Brett, riding from OC to Portland, has been adopted by Janelle and I. He's 18 and so OC yet has potential to be so much more. He's got a mohawk and the punk rock spirit, but for example on the first day he proclaimed "I want to eat Taco Bell EVERY DAY of this trip!" (we thoroughly dashed that dream), but we were able to watch him go from "I don't know, Hostels sound weird" to "Hostels are awesome!" and educate him about things like "what's a co-op?" We look forward to keeping in touch with him and watching him advance to a higher level of existence than staying in OC would have permitted him. Last we saw him he was talking about looking for a job in Portland on craigslist asap.
Ben was.. interesting. A thoroughly nice guy, so it was shocking when he'd casually mention snapping the neck of a goose in a city park so he could eat it for dinner. He certainly made the roadtrip more interesting.


Picture of the Day
   Anyway, SOME pictures are up. Here's Brett and Ben:

Brett and Ben

( more pictures )