arrived at 3:45PM

I made it. I'm alive. I reached Lynden in one piece, using only the directions from MapQuest as my guide.

Guru Nanak Gur Sikh Gurdwara is a substantial walk from the area where I crossed the Lynden city limits. The temple, a large white building that sprawls over its property, is quiet today; worship, as I was told by Mr. Satpal Sidhu (one of Rev. Rozendaal's Sikh contacts), is on Sunday at noon. I've been invited to stay for worship, and as the next place I'm hitting is a Soto Zen center which claims "Drop on by!" on its website, I'm going to do that: drop on by, but rather late. (I may, as a result, end up in a campground or motel!)

I went to an outbuilding next to the temple and was greeted by a lady who'd been told of my arrival. She led me into what I'm guessing is the men's side of the building to show me where I'd be spending the night. My current digs include an on-the-floor bed that will be familiar to any Korean. I have a bathroom and living room all to myself.

When I arrived, I and my clothes were pretty putrid (I felt sorry for the lady who first greeted me), so I got about the business of showering and washing my fetid garments. They're hang-drying outside now (my thanks to the ladies who allowed this).

I don't know that I'll be meeting anyone this evening, so I might actually have time to catch up on some actual religion blogging. In truth, today's walk was pretty harsh, so I'm rather tired and achy (that reminds me: aspirin!), but I have to stay awake and do these updates, otherwise I'll fall further and further behind.

I can see already that much of my walk is going to involve sucking in car exhaust. There were some stretches of road that were positively empty, like much of the 8-mile stretch of the Birch Bay-Lynden Road once you're past Route 5, but many roads carried plenty of traffic.

I'm worried that I won't be able to access real computers often enough to upload things like digicam shots and sound files (none of the latter yet, but there might be some soon). My camera and voice recorder will fill up if I don't empty them out, and then they'll... what? Explode?

More in a bit. I've got one shout-out to make, then some backpack-related chores to do.


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