Day 84, Wednesday, September 7

This morning after saying thanks to Archie and happy birthday to Bobbi, I headed over to the same Seattle KOA I’d stayed in before in order to use the internet briefly. I’ve gotten way behind on e-mails and this journal and need to catch up!
I decided I wanted to have time to investigate the ferry to the San Juan Islands this evening which meant I’d need to find a camp site fairly quickly after heading North from Seattle and Bay View State Park seemed just to place to call home. I dropped the trailer off at Bay View State Park and headed over to Anacortes to check out the ferry schedules over to the San Juan Islands. Hopefully when I get back from Canada, Amy Davison will be around and I’ll be able to stop by to see her.
Amy deserves her own side bar so here it goes. I met Amy about a year ago playing volleyball in Chicago. It didn’t take long after meeting her to figure out that we had a lot of interests in common and that she was definitely somebody I wanted to get to know better. She’s very bright, an excellent conversationalist, and definitely a risk taker. Only thing was that she was leaving. She had already quit her job as an attorney, put her condo on the market and purchased a new car. Reason? She’d tired of her job and decided she wanted to go see the United States and find a truer calling. Does this sound familiar? (Very much like my "Dear Family and Friends" letter.) At that point I had already pretty much decided I was going to do a similar trip and hearing that she was planning a nearly identical trip gave me all that much more inspiration to do my trip. I had actually planned to join Amy during a section of her trip through Big Bend National Park in Southern Texas in early February, but Motorola tore those plans out from under my feet just 3 days before I was to depart. It really REALLY REEEAAAALLLLY pissed me off, screwed up part of Amy’s trip, and further concreted my resolve to quit. I’ve not had the chance to see Amy since she left Chicago and am really hoping to catch up with her while I’m in this area of the country.
When I got back from Anacortes, I struck up a conversation with the guy in the site next to me. He’s packed on his cross bicycle and is attempting a ride from Vancouver to San Diego. He was a waiter in Vancouver and, after getting sick of things there, sold all of his stuff and hopped on his bicycle seeking a better life. I hope all goes well for him but fear he may have underprepared for his trek. He doesn’t have nearly the provisions of other bicycle tourers I’ve met. He’s just got a couple of small panniers for the rear wheel and is carrying a small back pack (more like a book bag than a hiking back pack) He also has no clue what he’ll do once he reaches San Diego. More power to him. Hopefully everything turns out perfectly for him.