Don and Pat made some great pancakes for all of us for breakfast. Today was the first day riding with Greg, Lea and Ronja. Edwardo rode with us for a little while before heading back to the house. It was so much fun riding with a big group of cyclists. The terrain was pretty flat, with a few hills here and there. After riding for a while, we planned on stopping for lunch in one of the towns, but found out when we got there that there was a great little park with a playground in the next town, just 4 miles away, down a bike path. It was nice to be on the path away from traffic, but there was still a lot of pedestrian traffic on the trail. We had been on the trail for about 2 and a half miles when there were two sets of couples walking along the bike path, in opposite directions, that ended up taking up the entire path so no one could get through. The four (plus the baby) of us were moving along at about 12 mph (Greg says we were going faster). Joe was leading and yelled "Slowing," so we all started to slow down. Next thing that I knew Lea, who was right in front of me (I was last in the line) jammed on her brakes. I didn't have time to stop, since no one said anything about stopping, and next thing I knew everything started to be in slow motion. I tried to veer to the side to avoid hitting Lea, but there was no avoiding it. I hit the bike and then the pavement, with my handlebar bag flying off and I heard some of the coins that I had found scattering all over. Almost all of the impact was on my left elbow and hip. I of course had scrapes and spots that would be bruised, and my wrist also hurt quite a bit- so much so that I was really worried at first that it could be seriously hurt. Like the baby that I am, I cried for a while after the initial shock. Lea had a great medical kit handy and was nice enough to clean up my scrapes for me. In the aftermath of the crash, Lea's right rear pannier was laying under my bike and her rear fender had snapped off and was laying in the trail. Since we didn't think anything was seriously injured, we packed up and continued on down the trail. My arm was so swollen that I couldn't straighten it all the way or bend it all the way, but I could move my fingers and everything so that was good. There was a grocery store right close to the little park, so Joey and I decided to get some ice cream since that always makes me feel better. When we got to the park we had some mac and cheese for lunch and enjoyed watching Ronja play. I took a couple ibuprofen to try to reduce the swelling a bit. An hour or so later, we stopped at McDonalds to use the internet and found out that we actually did have a host for tonight in Everett! From where we were, we were pretty sure it was only about 15 miles away. We continued following the bike path that we had been following and it just kept going and going. It was almost like we were never going to get there. It turns out that it ended up being a little more than 30 miles from the McDonalds. At one point, when we still had about 15 miles left to get to their house, Ronja decided she was ready to be done for the day. Since we knew she wouldn't make it, we planned on just finding a spot to camp. We called our hosts to apologize that we wouldn't be able to make it there and explained the situation. To our surprise, they offered to come get Lea and Ronja in the truck! What a great plan, now we still get to go to meet them and go to their house. Greg, Joey and I left Lea and Ronja where we had stopped and the three of us continued on. About 20 minutes later, our hosts Neil and Janice beeped at us! Greg unloaded the trailer and a couple other things into the back of the truck so that he would have a little bit of a lighter load for the last 10 miles or so. Neil hopped on his bike to lead us home, while Janice headed down the road to pick up Lea and Ronja. It was so great having a tour guide- we definitely would have gotten lost. The first 8 or 9 miles were flat, but after that we had pretty long steep hill to climb. We just kept going up and up and up. Although it was steep, Joey and I have ridden up tougher hills on this trip. For me though, it wasn't so easy because of my sore arm, not to mention the ibuprofen that I had taken earlier had started to ware off. When we were riding on flat ground, I was able to keep moving, bending and straightening it to try to keep it limber; climbing was a different story though. Since it is so slow, I really had to hold onto the handle bars in order to keep the bike straight and not fall over. This put a lot of stress on my arm and made the hill way harder than it really was. When we finally got to their house after climbing up hill after hill, my arm was so stiff and swollen. The best thing though, was that a nice hot shower was waiting for me- and that definitely helped. Janice made some chicken and potatoes for dinner and we all enjoyed relaxing after what was a really long day for Greg and a pretty long day for us lately. We had a little "slumber party" in the guest bedroom. Lea, Greg and Ronja slept in the bed and Joey and I slept on the floor. Today was a pretty exciting day I'd say- although I definitely could have done without the crashing part, there has been too much of that lately between Joey's brakes going out causing him to crash into the pricker bushes and the car cutting Joey off yesterday. But I guess we can't complain since we've ridden over 7,300 miles without any major incidents. Our miles totaled 61.98 today.