July 31, 2010 Preparation and day one from a bicycle's Point of View (All bicycle exerpts will be in red)

Barbara has finally considered my perspective on this trip.  First, I know she spent a lot of time wondering whether or not to bring me.  I know I can be a real pain in the ass, but then again, most of the time I don't bother anybody.  But most of all, when I'm fun --I'm really, really fun.  So based on that third criteria, I got to go.


Also, Barb had been promising me for years that she'd take me on a cross country trip, so this is it, finally.
We are both excited in spite of the negatives. Sandra encouraged Barbara to bring me along because she knew Baarbara been promising to take me across country for years.  Thank you Sandra.



I already had a lot of stuff for the trip, but they bought me even more.  They had raincoats for themselves, so they bought me a special raincoat just for the long trip.

Barbara goggled, printed and studied a 54 page cross country bicycle route that went through Nebraska  It all sounded great to me.  I was excited just to be going.  I didn't care about what route we took, just as long as I got to go.


So we got packed up and ready to go.  Sandra had bought a rack for me two years ago and this would be our first time using it.  It was pretty slick.


So off we went.  Noon-- August 31, 2010.  As with any trip East, Vegas is always the first stop.
So I expected to stop in Vegas that first night.  But then Barbara and Sandra started talking about avoiding the Vegas crowds and going to Laughlin instead. This meant that I would get to go for a ride along the Colorado River. But when we got to Laughlin it was 104 degrees at 8 oclock at night.  The day before had been over 130 degrees.  It was hot, hot, hot.  I thought I would melt, but they put me in a special cool room at the Aquarius Hotel/casino. So I stayed in storage, Sandra gambled and then Barbara, true to form, remembered too late that she had now driven so far south that the Nebraska bicycle route that she had originally planned now made no sense.  So now her well thought out trip was null and void.  Wasted hours and hours, wasted ink, and 54 pages of wasted paper.  And worse yet, she now had to spend her time in Laughlin replanning a route that would get her to the Emeigh's before Aug. 7th.


But never fear.  Plan two.  They had the book they bought from Costco--  "120 Most Scenic Roads in America".  And frankly that sounded even better to us than a cross country bike route. So that's what we will now be doing--riding on the most scenic roads in America.  I can't wait!!!

I spent the night in the cool storage room of the Aquarius Casino.  Otherwise, I think I would have melted-honestly.

Impetus for taking this cross country road trip.

Don called and said it might be a good time for us to come visit Chuck, who has had stage four cancer for three years..  Don also wanted to have his wedding reception while we were back there, so that is how we began thinking about a trip to Phyllis and Chuck's in Virginia..

Ordinarily we would never have planned to travel in August unless it was with the grand kids, but August worked well for us because we didn't have any jobs then.  We had talked about taking the grandkids with us, but they needed to be back for school too soon, so we took them to Yosemite and Universal Studios before we left.

It was Sandra who suggested driving instead of flying back to Phyllis's.

 Then we decided that since we were going East we would inquire about entertaining in exchange for lodging at a New Hampshire Inn near where Chev was from.  So I was very excited when we got the job to do a two hour show in exchange for two nights at the Inn.  That meant carrying equipment, however.

Then we decided that since we were going to be in New Hampshire, I would look up Deer Valley Family Camp in Pennsylvania where I had worked for several summers during college, with Janice. 

Then, since we were going to be in New Hampshire, I had always wanted to return to Bar Harbor, Maine.  so that became part of the trip.

Then, since we were going to be in Maine, it made sense to return West via Canada, as that's about the only place Sandra and I hadn't already traveled to before.

Then, since we were going to be that far north, we would be near Sally and Bob Miller's family near Mackinaw, MI, so that got added to the trip.

Then, since we were going to be in Canada, returning to Banff and Lake Louise and adding the phenominal Jasper to the trip made sense.

Then, since we were that close to the Oregon Coast, we decided to call Better Bartz and hope that she would be available.

Riding my bicycle cross country has been on my bucket list since I was in my 20's.  Having met people who paid $10,000 to ride cross country for a month I decided that riding a gruelling eight hours a day and paying that kind of money to do it no longer appealed to me. But taking my bike cross country on the back of the car sounded marvelous and it turned out to be my favorite moments and I have to thank Sandra for the encouragement.