Let's get ready to ride!!!

Our first big adventure is scheduled for late May and June of this year.  Mary Kay has been a runner for many years.  I am a pretty good watcher! Although sometimes even that wears me out.   Over Memorial Day Mary Kay and two of our sons will run in the Bolder Boulder 10K race.  After a few days of rest we will start out on our bike ride home to Plymouth, IN (approx. 1300 miles).  This is our first blog entry.  I will try to catch up on some of the past as we begin to make more frequent posts about our preparations and the actual ride.

Mary Kay and I have spent the last month trying to organize our ride.  It is only about six weeks until we head to Denver - and then we ride home.  We recently visited our son Matt, his wife Julie and our two granddaughters Phoebe and Sylvie in Denver. While we were there we looked for equipment.  We are using our own Trek Hybrid bikes, but certainly needed additional items.  I have been reading a few blogs and other sites for ideas over the last several months.  Our plan is that Mary Kay will put rear panniers on her bike, carrying most of our clothes.  I thought I would get a Yak trailer to pull behind my bike with our tent and other supplies.  We were fortunate that one of Matt's partners in his architecture firm loaned us the panniers and rack.  As tight  as I am with a nickle that helped me feel better about buying a trailer. 

Craigs list had a trailer listed about 15 miles away.  I contacted the guy and made arrangements to go see it.  Well, it just happened to be the night of a big Spring snowstorm in Denver.  Being from Indiana I figured I could drive through it.  About 3 hours later I returned home with the trailer.  For some reason there were not snowplows out at all.  About 8 inches of snow fell in just a few hours.  Another one of my traits, besides being cheap is that I am a little stubborn too.  Well, I did get the trailer and I did make it back safely.

After buying some shoes, clothes, an air mattress, sleeping bags, and a tent we were pretty well set with our gear.  Things look like they will fit in the trailer.  However, I left the packed trailer in Denver, so the last month and a half of training rides will be without the trailer.  The first chance I will have to try it out will be a few days before we leave on our trip.

Another great part of our trip was being there with our youngest son, Kyle and his fiance Sarrah.  Kyle has just moved to Denver - a dream of his for several years.  Sarrah is finishing her degree in special education at Purdue.  They will be married in December and living in or around Denver.  This will give us another good reason to visit Colorado.

Mary Kay and I are really getting excited about our ride.  The part that has us a little nervous is where we will sleep each night.  We realize that there may be times when we are not close to a campground or hotel.  Hopefully, we will find some kind people in those cases that will let us sleep in their yards.  That is one of the most exciting parts of the trip.  We love to meet people in their home environments, to find out what they are thinking about, what is important to them, what their friends and neighbors are like. We plan to journal some of these times throughout the bike ride and also as we end the summer in Europe.  Stay with us.