Video: The Dipping Ceremony

First Week

So far, so good! Our flight and shuttle went right on schedule, and Rosie picked us up at 3pm in Mt Vernon. We headed for our campsite at Washington Park in Anacortes, and the day cleared beautifuly. We made dinner by the water and watched the sun set over the Pacific.
The next day, we caught an early ferry to Lopez Island in the San Juans. My bike gears were not working well, which was a pain on the hills. But otherwise we had a good ride, covering pretty much the whole island. Lots of farmland and views of the ocean in the distance. We biked 45 miles in total.
The next day we did the "wheel dipping" ceremony with Rosie and Michael to cheer us on and take pictures. We didn't get far- just a few miles down the road to the bike shop, to get my gears adjusted. Finally we started off, thru Anacortes and then on to a nice bike path. We had a bad stretch of heavy traffic on rte 20, but thankfully soon got off on quieter roads. We ended on South Skagit Rdwy, and found a campsite on Skagit Land Trust property, recommended by Michael. It was a mile down a grassy (and slug-infested) track. It was a quiet and peaceful place to camp.
We left camp slug and hit the road by 9am, and then it was only 30 miles to Rosie's place in Marblemount. The day turned warm and sunny - a great afternoon to check out the gardens and have a nice dinner outside. So far, it hasn't rained on us and we're excited for the first pass, coming up next.

All Packed Up

We're Off

After many, many months of planning we are finally ready to depart on our long awaited cross country bike trip. Tomorrow morning, my Dad will drive Bonnie and I to Logan airport. There were times I thought this day would never come. We have talked about doing this trip since the middle of 2007, and now it's here. A cycle for freedom begins tomorrow morning, and we can hardly wait. Stay tuned - our next blog is from on the road, from who knows where! Have a good summer, everyone!

Bikes arrive, beat up, broken, and lost!

The bike boxes beat up, parts broken, and gear lost, don't ask me, ask UPS! The good news first, the bikes did arrive at Rosemary's house in Marblemount, Washington when UPS said they would, last monday. The bad news is, they went through a war to get there. I thought the war was in the Middle East, not the Middle USA. The boxes were bad enough that the driver was ready to ship them back, for new ones I guess. But, these bikes aren't from a company Rosemary explained, and I need the bikes. After opening the war-torn boxes, she notice many problems right away. Bonnie's bike has a broken plastic piece and her front brake was damaged. My bike box had a foot hole in the bottom of it and funny that, I am missing a shoe. So much for going the safer way and putting all our trust in UPS, instead of the friendly skies. After talking to Rosemary on the phone and her e-mailing me many photos of the damaged goods, I marched into the UPS store we shipped from. No questions asked, we will get the money for all damaged and lost items, but no extra money for headaches and stress. This is at most a small set back, I believe we can fix all problems ourselves and not be delayed our start. Which is real good because day one is to bike around the San Juan Islands, and it's also my birthday. Can you think of a better birthday present then starting an adventure of many months with your best friend? For some maybe, but I can't. Many thanks to Rosemary, (Bonnie's sister) for all her time and effort to make sure we recieved all the infomation and photos to make a case at UPS. I guess it wouldn't be much of a journey, if everything went perfectly from start to finish, problem being we haven't even started yet. All in all, we are both very excited to get rolling and hope you'll follow us, through our blogs to the end. Just another day at the office, for an adventurer.

Bikes shipped UPS

And they're off! Our bikes are now in the hands of UPS after a bit of panic and shock. After our test ride we broke down the bikes to fit into the large bike boxes we got from the airport (free of charge). Nice, well not really. Atfer hours of bike demo and driving them to the UPS store we find out that 1) the boxes are to big and 2) the price is double of what the airlines charge. Two happy bikers quickly turned into two upset bikers. We made the decision to cut the bike boxes smaller inside the store so they would be allowed to ship and pay the extra money. Well, it's a small price to pay for freedom!

Test Ride

Despite cold tempertures and rainy conditions we took to the roads of Marshfield on our loaded bikes. Trying to get a feel for the extra weight of the packs and checking for any changes we may want before its to late. We found no problems in the short ride we took other than trying to keep the weight to a minimum. Mike's bike weighed in at over 85 pounds without food or water, Bonnie's has not been weighed loaded yet.