The Washington Post
Vancouver relaxation
Waving Age & Evelien goodbye, we had a game to go to! For Matthijs’ birthday we were going to cheer the BC Lions football team on, and they won! It was great to see one of North America’s biggest sport live. We didn’t take our bicycles there, but we could have as they had a valet bicycle parking. YEAH, way to go :)! Our Sunday was filled with coffee and relaxation as a we went for a float. Floating is a way to break away from all sensory experiences by floating on salt water in a closed tank. An amazing way to fully relax! This rejuvenated us for our way onwards, only some 20.000 kms to go.
BC Lions Winning! 
Bicycle Valet Parking
Visiting family
We rolled our way south through the ‘boonies’ and encountered some getting stuck in the mud fun before to reached White Rock to visit Harm Geert, Nadia and Sam. So great to see them after such a long time! We joined Sam for a horse riding lesson and had some great dinners, conversations and “Heads up!” games at their place before it was time for us to make a move back into the US. A ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island followed and we got the opportunity to stay with Trent and Kirsten at their forest house next to a small lake! We explored Victoria and had a night out at the local jazz club before we departed on the ferry. This is where we first met Hunter and Charlie, cyclists from the UK. It would definitely not be the last time :).
Boating into the US
The ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles got us back into the promised land of Mr. Trump! We almost managed to miss customs as it took some time to wheel our bikes and take our sails down the walkway. By the time we reached the counter everyone had already left. When we cycled out we were stopped to show our passports, luckily these Dutchies were ok to ride on!
@ HG, Nadia and Sam’s 
Border crossing
Victoria – Port Angeles
Stuck in the boonies 
Riding the coast 
View from Kirsten & Trent’s deck
We camped one night and had an amazing ride down green Washington into Bremerton! This was where we had our first ‘Warm Showers’ experience at Carmela & Brian’s place! We were so surprised they were able to host while they just returned from a trip to Alaska! Wow, we could stay with them for two nights and explore Seattle for a day!
City trippin’ with coffee and music in green biospheres
Bremerton is an American naval base and the morning we took the ferry to Seattle, aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis would leave the harbor as well. We were amazed by the size of this ship and the fact that it has more than 5,000 people onboard! It is actually a floating village, although a slight different set-up to our own floating neighborhood in Amsterdam ;). Arriving in downtown Seattle we visited the famous Pike Place Market and had some of the best coffees of our trip thus far in a tucked away little place. Not at the very first Starbucks, but at Storyville next door! We checked out the pop museum and its exhibition on Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix. Washington state has a rich music history for sure! We were lucky that Jorn, an ex-colleague of Matthijs, was around for a coffee as he is busy setting up Tesla’s charging stations in the US. Very insightful and great to learn about his experiences while living and working in the US! Seattle has seen a rocketing increase in jobs as there are a lot of multinationals like Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon present in this vibrant northern city. The Amazon biospheres are a clear example on how modern cities are cultivated and shaped around corporate ideas of green living and working.
Amazon Biospheres 
Visiting Jorn @ Tesla 
Museum of POP 
Fall in Seattle
When we returned to Brian and Carmela’s we were also welcomed by their daughter, son in-law and their two kids with whom we enjoyed a feast of a dinner they had prepared!
Our first Warm Showers hosts! 
Leaving Seattle
The next day we cycled to Olympia where we were also lucky enough to find kind hosts in Ian and Sierra! This amazing couple cycled down the US west coast for their honeymoon as well and used a really cool retro tandem. They are big into randonneuring as well and Ian has even done the famous Paris-Brest-Paris: 1200km within four days!
From Olympia we rode towards the coast and camped. We baked some pancakes for dinner (a very Dutch thing to do) and enjoyed a nice campfire. A horrible bridge of more than 6 km took us over the Columbia river and into the state of Oregon: no room for bicycles and a nasty climb at the end. But we made it into Astoria!