Brian Richardson

This is my first time writing a blog post on my phone so we’ll see how this goes.

It was an early morning for us and our families, who had to be up at 4:15 sharp to make it to RDU for our flight to Seattle. Evan and Wes’ family flew out with us to see us off tomorrow morning and then spend some time on the West Coast.

While we were waiting at the gate in RDU, a minister and his wife sitting across from us asked about our matching, purple, Be Loud! t-shirts and we told him about our mission to support adolescent and young-adult cancer patients. He told us that he had fought with and overcome cancer three separate times in his life and it was obvious that he understood better than anyone how impactful the services of Be Loud! are. His generous donation helped us reach 10% of our fundraising goal ($4,200 out of $42,000)! It is these kinds of encounters that make a trip like this so special.

Today we crossed the country in four hours on a plane flying at 500 miles an hour. Tomorrow, we will dip our wheels in the Pacific Ocean and go back across the country in two months at about 15 miles an hour. On the plane, I thought about the respective advantages of these two modes of transportation.

Flying:

-It’s fast

-It’s air-conditioned

-You get two free glasses of apple juice

Biking:

-You get to feel the breeze on your face as you ride through some of the most scenic landscapes in the country.

-The slow pace forces you to get to know people and places with an intimacy that you can’t get any other way.

-There’s infinite legroom.

Once we arrived in Seattle, we hopped in a rental van, picked up our bikes that we had shipped to Rat City Bikes, and headed towards La Push.

Can’t wait to get started tomorrow.

Evan and Wes at the Pacific Coast in La Push. We’ll be back here tomorrow morning to dip our tires!