How to pick up chicks

Two new additions to the coop. A Barred Rock and an Australorp. No names yet. Feel free to give your suggestions. Our current chickens are Edith (for Edith Head, prolific costume designer of yesteryear) and Aung (for Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese political prisoner).

We got these two as a preemptive measure. Aung and Edith have already started to slow down their egg-laying, and will likely slow down significantly more in the next year, just in time for our new two to start pumping 'em out. It's quite a return on the investment. We bought them for a whopping $1.75 each. They'll eat all of our food scraps, provide us with an endless supply of high-quality manure, and will hopefully lay about an egg a day for a while. The only real expense is chicken feed, a mere $15 every couple months or so.

It's good to keep chickens in the city; I knew I wanted to do it from the time we started looking for a house. And it happens all over. A chicken in every backyard! Huzzah!

Bellingham to Bainbridge

We made it! Barely! Whew! And I've got soccer tonight. So much for fresh legs.

Day One - Bellingham to Deception Pass State Park
Miles: 42.77 (42.77 total) Riding time: 4 hours, 29 minutes

All packed up and ready to go!

Still happy on the Chuckanut

Adam on the nice, easy flats of Skagit County

Erin on the Padilla Bay Bike Path

At Deception Pass State Park, with the first bridge of terror in the background

Setting up camp at Deception Pass

A hearty first day dinner, direct from the Corner Mini Mart

Erin braved the bridge, and lived to get her picture taken

The San Juans look okay from the beach at Deception Pass...I guess

The sunset was okay, too...actually, it's better on film than it was in person

Day Two - Deception Pass State Park to Port Townsend
Miles: 30.11 (72.88 total) Riding time: 3 hours, 34 minutes

A bit rainy and cold on our second day. Less pictures. Sorry. But we have a few.

Whidbey zigs and zags...we rode the background part earlier

Saw this sign in Coupeville...hard to tell but yes, that car is a squash

Just before Fort Casey and the ferry to Port Townsend...notice the matching jackets

Day Three - Port Townsend to Bainbridge Island (Erin's "Day from Hell")
Miles: 47.98 (120.86 total) Riding Time: 5 hours, 47 minutes! Yikes!

Erin's self-titled "Day from Hell." As there was Hell involved, we've got even less pictures than before. When you have to pedal hard to go downhill because of the massive headwind, you're not really thinking about pictures.

Lots of hills, and especially steep ones on some side roads. Also, two nasty bridges (Hood Canal, about two miles long!) and Agate Pass (with devilish sneaky crosswind attacks), which we mostly walked across because of minimal shoulders, lots of traffic and, oh yeah, WIND. Bridges, by the way, are worse than hills or traffic. They are tricksy little bastards.

But if that was a rough day (Erin had a medium-sized meltdown with about 12 miles to go), we should be thankful. We made it, with no flats, broken spokes, crashes, injuries, or other possible disasters. But dang.

Before the big hills, but the road that had the first really nasty one...my new favorite road name

Ever heard of "helmet hair"? I've got my mohawk!

Erin recharges with a granola bar on the Egg & I

We made it!

Getting ready for our first overnighter

We leave early Tuesday morning for our first overnight bike tour, hopefully a good warmup as we inch closer and closer to Europe. Bellingham to Bainbridge--three days, two nights. It works out to about 44 miles the first day, 30 the second, and 30 the third. The first one will be a long haul, and hard, but I have no doubt that we can swing it. We just might have to ride for a long time. A long time. We'll see.

We're busy preparing mentally, physically, and mechanically. Today I finished putting fenders on Erin's bike and adjusted my panniers so that my heel won't hit them as I'm riding. I rode to school last week, and I was bumping them a bit. But they're adjustable, so it shouldn't be a problem now. We got a few tools for the ride, as well, but hopefully we won't have to use them.

Dang! It's exciting! Yahoo!

Match-makers

We're matching, a little too much, perhaps. Our bikes are exactly the same, our jackets are exactly the same, our panniers look the same (though at least they're different colors). Even our new helmets are close to the same color. Yeesh. Is this a good thing, a bad thing, or just too cute to specify? The problem is, when we find a quality piece of merchandise that we need, why keep looking for a different one, just so that we won't look exactly the same? That's my opinion anyway. Erin's doesn't seem very happy about it. But we'll survive.

Maybe people won't notice. They'll think they've got double vision. Either that or they'll develop a strange hankerin' for Doublemint gum.