day 1: bozeman to vancouver

*note: you'll have to excuse poor writing. i'm typing on my little iphone and it's nearly midnight (1am mst, which i'm still on). but i want to try to blog whenever we have wifi....so here we go. 

we woke up at 4:30am to catch a flight to denver, to catch a flight to vancouver. it was a very roundabout way to arrive at our destination, but we did arrive and so did our bikes! (the guy on the left is one half of the lewtons - new friends of ours. this is austin and samuel after i realized it was too late to take a photo of them carrying in a bike box, hence the blurry photo.)

although we were an hour delayed, we had a game plan to put together one bike at a time and get to west point cycle before 6pm. after we got both bikes to a point of "good enough," we took off like the wind, got lost, and made it with a minute to spare before closing time.

our entrance was a bit dramatic i suppose. two sweaty kids with a lot of gear and our little flags poking out of our bags both speaking out of breath and parched, actually, asking if they could do this and that and this and that. i won't bore you with the details because whenever someone talks about something i don't know anything about, my face contorts. anyway, they said to come back in 45 minutes and we did after an ice blended green tea matcha drink from my cup coffee & tea in kerrisdale. and like magic, our bikes were like (used-)new again. we thanked them profusely for staying an hour and a half after closing time to help our newbie-asses out. we were extremely grateful. 

feeling secure and confident (of our bikes), we pedaled our way to our friends julie and jehaan's home at university housing to be greeted with warm hugs, familiar faces, and a really wonderful meal. it was heart-warming to catch up with friends who too have made a dramatic change in their lives to reset and create space to learn and grow their relationship. 

our stuff is sprawled out everywhere as we occupy the entirety of their living room. eep! but i'm hoping that the jar of wild montana huckleberry jam we brought them will quickly erase the memories of our bike gear chaos. ha! ;-p 

tonight, i'm feeling grateful that samuel and i are here, that we had old friends to connect with, & that we could take a cleansing shower. (it was really warm and humid here, which for this girl meant sweaty everything.) and, i'm going to sleep hoping that little judah will jump on the air mattress tomorrow morning and wake me with a delightful laugh. (i miss being around a little person.)

ps. what the heck. how come no one mentioned that vancouver is like a mini chinatown? i am in multicultural heaven.