Pre-Adventure WORLDwind

Well, after nearly 900 miles (886 actually) of car driving/riding, we have completed our pre-adventure trip. Taking off from Richland we saw friends in Portland (got THE Hook-Up at IceBreaker, thank you Claire and Casey) and had a fun and exciting Halloween evening with Rood, Ross, Hayley and Audrey.

Thursday we started the day off with some delicious food from Tasty n Sons in Portland before heading north to Lacey, to see my parents. For dinner that night we met up with my little sister, Rob and Abi, and my mom and dad.

Friday morning it was up to Seattle (of course a trip to the REI) and UW to see all of our Seattle area amigos! Kelly and housemates were gracious enough to have us invade their personal space and host a little gathering. Thank you ALL: Kelly, Bryn, Claire, Emily, Warner, Irving, Dean, Font, Caitlyn, Pat, Ari, Colin, Syd, Chris, Leah, Ryan, Sally, Josh, for coming out and having a rip-roarin good time!

Saturday was time to root the WWU Women's soccer team on to a 2-0 victory against MSU Billings at Starfire, Go Vikings! good luck in the next round! After the game we headed up to good ole Bellingham with Katie coming along to keep Kase and me company. Our grumbling stomachs lead us to Casa where we met Jaimie and Mitch and indulged in Nachos, Green Magmas, and BLTski's along with Scotch's! We met up with Kyle and Jon at Boundary Bay to continue the night of 'sight seeing' ;) Ending the night at the UP and then walking home to G'mas! (thank you Rosemary!)

Sunday, after meeting up with Tim and Jan to share travel plans and Olympic stories, we headed south to Everett to see Joel and Brian and watch most of the Hawks win (thanks for the 'pie' Joel). Then it was back home to Richland.

It is amazing to think that when we got back we had just about 48 hours until we headed out on our real journey.

Both Kasey and I feel extremely lucky to be able to take this adventure, but we feel even more lucky to have the family and friends that we do. Our four-day scramble to see as many of you as we could really could not have happened if you weren't all such awesome people. It was really great to see all of you and exchanging hugs, smiles, trip tips and enjoying time with each other. We can't tell you enough how fortunate we are to have you all in our lives, Thank you!