Day 9 (6/10): Walla Walla, WA; Day Off

Team Photos

“Sleeping in” till 8:30 today was glorious. Team wake up wasn’t actually until 9:30 am, so I used the hour to catch up on these super-cool journals. We ate a quick crew-chief breakfast and milled around until our early sponsored lunch at 11. Walla Walla seems kind of spread out as we cruised through town; it was surprising to see fraternity and sorority houses (nice ones, even) at Whitman college. Merchant’s Ltd., a little coffee shop/deli served us up some delicious sandwiches; it was funny: their two rules were “no dogs, and no Starbucks, especially Starbucks” (there was a Starbucks across the street). Jay played “junior PM” and did his best Sollner impression when thanking the sponsor…”how’d ya like that meal boys?!” which had the team bustin up

After lunch we had a little down time back at the dome which I used to replace my brake pads on the bike (which will be important for slowing down on the ridiculous downhills we’re about to face). At around 1:30 the team headed to the Laundromat, or “washiteria” as Jay calls it to do some much needed laundry, followed by a short team meeting to go over the next few days and recap how the trip was going so far back at the dome.

Dinner was provided by Jim at his ridiculously awesome home on the outskirts of Walla Walla. As the deliciously-smell smoker cooked up some burgers and dogs we got to play around in the pool (our game of marco polo lasted one round as we quickly discovered the game does in fact suck), feed some chickens and collect their eggs, and hang out by the fire pit on what turned out to be a beautifully sunny afternoon. After packing into the vans we drove 2 miles down to the Oregon border to get some goofy team pics in front of the Welcome to Oregon and Washington signs…proof we were here!

Wake up is back to the norm at 5:30 am tomorrow with our first century (100 mile) ride to Lewiston…sure hope these legs are rested up!

P.S. My phone decided to stop working today so hopefully I’ll get that fixed soon so we all don’t miss out on potentially great conversations.