A friend convinced me that buying bikes off of amazon is really bad idea so I reluctantly headed over to an actual bike store. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for supporting local jobs/stores but I fully expected to be patronized by some uber bike geeks about getting an entry level bike rather than a gzillion speed racer with titanium something or other.
It turns out the folks at the trek store are super friendly, patient, and they let us browse around to our heart's content. More importantly, the lady that was helping us out had very very useful suggestions and lo and behold we ended up buying a bike I absolutely love. I even took the bike for a spin. Now, I can't say I'm a fan of their prices (I still am amazed I ended up paying that much) but they seem to have a decent customer policy.