Welcome to Bellingham

Instead of going to class on the 3rd and 4th of November, I woke up at 4am to catch the bus across the mexican Canadian border to ride at the town of Bellingham. Only 2 hours by bus and less by car its easy for Vancouverites to make the trip down.

A bagel place I stopped at that I like so much I took this boring picture of it.

At first glance though, there isn't much to put it on the map. Its relatively small, but not really country town like. There aren't any mountains nearby. What's one to do?

For me, I rode. A lot. On Thursday I started riding at 10 and finished at 5:30. I was absolutely shattered afterwards.

Luckily for me, the lack of hostels in the area meant I had booked a bed and breakfast with a local family. The house was very nice and I loved having a double bed to sleep in. There were three cats, each with varying temperaments...

The local Gailbraith (I think that's spelt correctly) mountain is more of a hill, but still provides a stunning selection of local trails. In contrast to the north shore, they are not very steep but feature HUGE amounts of jumps, which made me realise how bad at jumping I've become.

I was also amazed at how friendly the locals are. In that regards it is like a small town and I really felt like everyone I met on the trails and even around town cared about the community. This sense of camaraderie must have something to do with the amount of local breweries, which was quite simply astonishing. My first post showering ride plans were to beeline to the nearest pub, but I realised that the drinking age in America is in fact greater than pretty much everywhere else.

It didn't put a damper on my spirits though. After taking a more sedate ride on Friday, I stopped at a dodgy van and a man gave me a burrito.  Overall I have no regrets about the trip and tomorrow I'm off to Seattle. I may regret the burrito though.