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Seattle to Everett

Day 1 · Completed

Mountlake Terrace

Bethesda Lutheran Church, Mountlake Terrace, Washington

Day one out of Fred Hutch, and a tent at a church in Mountlake Terrace

This day on the route

Date
The day
Walking
Walked
12.4 miles

Day 1, September 7: 12.4 miles walked, from Fred Hutch at UW Medical Center–Montlake to Bethesda Lutheran Church in Mountlake Terrace. Her total includes some backtracking while she looked for a place to sleep.

Route overview, not turn-by-turn directions.

Gouache and ink illustration of a leafy Shoreline sidewalk beside a small theater, with a tall blue facade, blank marquee and a distant walker in coral.
Ridgecrest, Shoreline, which she walked through on the first day. Illustration.

On September 7, the first day, Jeana walked 12.4 miles north from Fred Hutch through Shoreline and ended at Bethesda Lutheran Church in Mountlake Terrace, where she slept in her tent.

She left Fred Hutch on a bright Monday morning, and the questions started almost straight away. People stopped her to photograph the sign on her pack and the QR codes on the tag she wears round her neck, one for the Foundation and one for the registry.

It was Labor Day, and finding somewhere to sleep took the rest of the evening. It was dark by the time she was done, which she does not like, but there were sidewalks and streetlights. She ended the day at Bethesda Lutheran Church, and slept in her tent there.

Her journal names the night’s stop Ridgecrest, the Shoreline neighborhood on the published plan, but the church she slept at stands in Mountlake Terrace, a few miles farther north. That is the stop shown here, and it fits the distances she walked over the next two days.

From the road

Day one out of Fred Hutch, and a long way to a bed

She left Fred Hutch on a bright Monday morning and the questions started almost straight away. People stopped her on the road to photograph the sign on the back of her pack, or the tag she wears round her neck with its QR codes — one for the Foundation, and one that leads to NMDP. A Russian woman on the road; folks from India and Asia and the Middle East; people from all over the world, wanting to know how to join the registry. To her that was the best of it, because the Foundation wants a more diverse registry.

The walking was harder than the map made it look. Out of Fred Hutch the hills were steep, and 20th Avenue took her down a footpath, down a long flight of wooden steps and along a trail through the trees before turning up a climb so steep she was afraid the pack would pull her over backwards. For the last ten yards she took it off, swung it ahead of her a few feet at a time, and followed it up.

Finding somewhere to sleep took the rest of the evening; it was Labor Day, which may not have helped. A pastor at a Baptist church would have helped and was not allowed to. She doubled back to a theatre that was still open, where they let her take the pack off and sit down, and rang the police, who were not able to help. Across the street a man named Minaj, working the counter at a 7-Eleven, bought her a coffee and a power bar — he could not simply give them to her, he had to ring them through — and then paid for a car to take her to a fire station. The man driving it was called Mohamed. The firefighters could not put her up, or let her pitch the tent in their locked yard, but they were all very kind, said they would share how to join the registry, and gave her a ride back to her route.

It was dark by then, and she does not like walking in the dark, but there were sidewalks and there were streetlights. She stopped at a place called Sunnie’s Express, where they let her charge her phone and rest her feet until closing, and then she carried on until she found somewhere safe to put the tent, at Bethesda Lutheran Church in Ridgecrest.

When I ask if I can stay somewhere, I ask with an openness that allows for any answer.

Jeana Moore
Jeana Moore, barefoot in a hi-vis vest, sits on a sofa reaching into an open zip kit of small tubes on a side table, beside a roll of tape and folded socks, under framed red artworks.Jeana Moore in a hi-vis vest, smiling on a sofa beside her packed rucksack and tent, holding a yellow STOP BLOOD CANCER banner with a QR code on it.Long, glossy fern fronds with rows of narrow leaflets fan out over a forest floor of dry brown fallen leaves, with a single yellow-green leaf at the edge.A close-up of a long fern frond, its neat rows of leaflets running down a central stem, with more fronds crowding in beside a rough, dark tree trunk.A banner hanging among green leaves shows the dark silhouette of a person in a cap standing at the edge of the surf, beside the words BE BOUNDLESS in tall white letters.Two white flowers with broad, rounded petals and rings of golden stamens around round green centres, among long thin stems, small buds and dark green leaves.Two geese with long black necks and white chin patches walk across a lawn of patchy green and dry grass, one lifting a webbed foot mid-stride.Three geese stand on bright green grass beside a set of speckled stone steps, one facing the camera and two in profile beside it with their heads raised.A red-brick building seen over a bent chain-link fence and red-leafed shrubs, a dark banner reading BLACK LIVES MATTER above the lettering University Congregational, beside a weathered wooden utility pole.Seen through a chain-link fence, a red-brick building with a dark banner reading BLACK LIVES MATTER above the lettering University Congregational, United Church of Christ, rises over an empty parking lot whose fence carries signs reading Reserved Parking, Sunday Mornings Only.Seen through a chain-link fence, a red-brick wall carries a dark banner reading BLACK LIVES MATTER above the white lettering University Congregational, United Church of Christ, and a cross emblem topped by a crown.Looking down from a height into a wooded ravine, where narrow dirt paths wind through a carpet of ferns and low green ground cover beneath leafy trees.
Show all 27 photos from this dayShow fewer photos
A tall moss-streaked trunk rises beside a feathery evergreen, with a thin, moss-flecked stem snaking down through the branches and a few broad green leaves at the top edge.Looking down from above onto a paved path running through a deep green gully of dense shrubs and tall trees, one trunk wrapped in a dark climbing vine.A canopy of leafy trees seen from above, tall pale trunks rising out of dense green foliage, with a white vehicle half hidden among the trees at the left.A sidewalk runs beside a black chain-link fence and a curving road with a painted bike lane, past parked cars, wheelie bins and houses, toward tall city towers on the horizon under grey cloud.A narrow paved path winds away through a tunnel of tall shrubs and overhanging trees, their big pale-green leaves catching the light, toward a sunlit opening.A long flight of weathered wooden steps climbing steeply up through green trees.A dirt trail scattered with fallen leaves leads toward a gnarled tree with several tall trunks under a canopy of bright green leaves, with dry grass and undergrowth on both sides.A dirt path edged with timber boards leads past metal handrails onto a narrow footbridge with pale lattice sides, between tall trees and dense undergrowth beneath overhead power lines.A close-up of a single golden-yellow flower with four broad, crinkled petals deepening to orange at the centre, among fine silvery-grey foliage and dry stems.A tree-lined sidewalk strewn with fallen leaves runs beside a road with a few distant cars, past a thick trunk with leafy growth at its base and a pole carrying a small sign reading No Parking 4-6PM.Jeana Moore leaning out of a car window, laughing, next to a young man in a 7-Eleven uniform taking the photograph.A close-up of broad, fan-shaped green leaves with finely ribbed surfaces and wavy edges, on a slender pale-barked young tree beside a concrete curb with a drain grate.A printed list of help services: 2-1-1 King County Help Line, Vehicle Outreach (UHeights) at Ballard Food Bank and SODO Community Market, Salvation Army Outreach housing help, and Urban Rest Stop – Showers, Laundry.A dark grey carved stone lion with a curled mane and bared teeth sits on an ornate plinth, one front paw resting on a small cub, beneath a lit covered entrance with pale stone walls.A glass jar of dried decorations, including a dark seed head pitted with deep holes, a ribbed ball-shaped pod, pale curled-wood flowers, feathery grass plumes and grain stalks, against a wall of wooden blocks.
Distance walked
12.4 miles
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Choose where you live

Continue to the official registry that serves you. It decides eligibility, handles registration and contacts you if you may match a patient.

United States — NMDP

NMDP accepts new registry members who are 18 to 35, live in the US, its territories or freely associated states, can meet NMDP’s health guidelines, and are not already registered through another US organization. Joining happens at home: you answer a few questions on NMDP’s site, they mail you a free cheek-swab kit, and you swab and send it back. Once you are a member you stay listed until you are 61 unless you ask to be removed — 61 is when NMDP takes you off, not an age at which you can join. NMDP makes the final eligibility decision.

Check the listed age range

Visit NMDP

NMDP — Join the registry · checked Sep 1, 2026

Prefer to text? Send JADA to 61474 and NMDP will take it from there.

Browse all official registry options

Eligibility rules can change. Confirm the current requirements with the official registry before joining.

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Sponsoring a mile, a day or a stop is a way of describing a gift to the Jada Bascom Foundation. It does not purchase anything on the route.

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Sources

Local history and background reading for this stop.

  1. Jeana’s updates from the road — the Marrow Walk journal — checked Oct 22, 2026
The flyer: STOP BLOOD CANCER set in tall letters over a dark plum page, a quote, and a QR code beside a text-to-join line for the U.S.One standing face of the table tent: the same headline and quote on the left, a large QR code on the right.

Take it off the screen

Print it. Put it where people already stand.

A coffee counter, a church foyer, a break room, a race table. Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk, and a number to text for anyone who would rather not scan — no app, no wifi, nothing to hand back.Every sheet carries the code that opens Jeana’s walk — nothing to install, nothing to hand back. The number to text printed beside it is for joining NMDP, which registers people who live in the U.S., its territories and the freely associated states. If you live anywhere else, find your country’s registry.

Everything else for running a drive

Rather be the one at the table?

Host a registration drive at your school, work or place of worship, raise funds, or lend a skill. Tell us what you have in mind and we will help you plan it.

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