Wow - three weeks from today will be our very first pedaling day of Looking Out Across America! Time flies, and we are feverishly preparing for the journey!
Donations
We've put a lot of effort into soliciting corporate donations and sponsorships lately, but we know that Brandi fans/ATers are some of the most generous folks on the planet - so, we are asking for YOUR help to make LOAA a success for the Fight the Fear Campaign and Looking Out Foundation!
We plan on presenting one of those silly, oversized checks to the Looking Out Foundation at the 2013 Raise the Roof event. We want there to be a big, crazy, awesome number on that check! Maybe you just got your tax refund? Maybe you found $10 in your coat pocket as you put it away for the season? Maybe you saved $2 by using coupons at the grocery store this week? If you're feeling generous, and want to help the Looking Out Foundation, click on that PayPal button over there on the right and help them out!
We've also been adding those generous people's names to our Sponsors tab (First name, last initial only!). We'd love to see that list grow :) Any donation is appreciated!
Gear
Other than maybe some minor toiletry items, I do believe each and every last little piece of anything that will ride across the country with us on our bikes this summer is either in our possession or on its way to us! Thank you to all of you generous souls who helped fulfill the rest of our Amazon Wish List! You are the best! We stopped in to our favorite local bike shop (Indy Cycle Specialist) this afternoon to purchase the last of our items - folding spare tires. And...rather than spend twice as much on a tent footprint, we'd like to thank Heather for her fantastic idea of using Tyvek house-wrap! It was half the price of a footprint, and will be lighter to carry, and is now on its way to our house via the miracle of Ebay.
Auction
We are excited about this part...we'll soon be auctioning off a really great Brandi Carlile Band print by our talened photographer pal Ruthi David, and autographed by the one-and-only Brandi Carlile! The auction will be Ebay-based, and we'll be sure to smatter social media with it once it's live! In a fun twist of fate, we happened to win the same print autographed by the band at last year's Raise the Roof event - it's been gracing our living room wall for months now, and it is awesome!
We will also have at least one more auction or raffle item (that we are super-excited about!), but we are still working out the details and format...more to come on that! (Oh, the suspense!)
Kick-Off Parties
Our Indianapolis party now has a location! It'll be at the Mt. Pleasant shelter at Eagle Creek Park around 4pm on Saturday, May 25th. Come on out if you can - we only ask that you RSVP on our Facebook page! We'll provide food and drink (all non-alcoholic though - silly park regulations!). There's a playground near the shelter if you have kids.
We're still working on a location for our Washington, D.C., but it'll be on Sunday, June 2nd at a bar, most likely. Thinking late evening as of now - if you want to stay apprised of any changes, RSVP to the East Coast Kick-Off party on Facebook!
News Articles
Look - we were in the news! The Williamsburg Yorktown Daily did a little article about us, and you can read it here: Two Charity Bike Rides Coming Through Historic Triangle Soon
Monday, May 13, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Delaware!
Delawarians...this one's just for you!
We have a generous supporter who has sponsored another t-shirt giveaway to cover our final shirtless state - Delaware!
You can earn up to two entries per person - by letting us know what state you live in (which is, hopefully, Delaware, if you're entering this contest!), and by liking us on Facebook.
Good luck guys - don't forget to share this with your friends from The First State!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
We have a generous supporter who has sponsored another t-shirt giveaway to cover our final shirtless state - Delaware!
You can earn up to two entries per person - by letting us know what state you live in (which is, hopefully, Delaware, if you're entering this contest!), and by liking us on Facebook.
Good luck guys - don't forget to share this with your friends from The First State!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Sunday, April 28, 2013
5 Weeks to Go!...Wait, only 5 weeks?!?!?
Hey guys! Thought
we’d just throw a slew of updates at you, since it’s been a while. And somehow, we’re only 5 weeks away from
heading out to the East Coast and dipping our wheels in the Atlantic. That little fact is exciting and terrifying
in the best of ways.
As of our last check-in (which was about a month ago), we
were hovering at about $1,000 donated to the Looking Out Foundation through
that fancy little PayPal link over there on the right -----à
Party on!
We have scheduled a couple of kick-off parties – one in
Indianapolis and one in Washington, D.C.!
The Indianapolis one will be in the evening on Saturday, May 25th,
likely at a park in the Indy area. It’ll
be a casual bbq, no charge to anyone who wants to attend; all we ask is that
you RSVP on the Looking Out Across America Facebook page so we can plan
accordingly!
The party in D.C. will be on the evening of Sunday, June 2nd. Location is still TBD – likely at a bar in
the area, so we’ll keep you posted on that.
If you can attend, please RSVP on our Facebook page so we know how many
to expect! Bring your friends, come on
out and have some fun! RSVP as soon as
you can – we need to start working with a location very soon in order to have
space reserved!
 |
| The party WILL NOT be here, unfortunately it was booked :( |
Donations
$1,000 is nothing to balk at! Hey, that’s $1,000 that might not have made
its way to LOF any other way, right?
But…I’m pretty sure we can all do better than that! And I’m not exempting the two of us from
doing our part and putting our money where our mouths are! We’re going to use that link and donate a bit
of cash to LOF via LOAA right now!
And hey, it is tax refund season, right? ;)
Sponsors
Finding sponsors is, frankly, hard as hell, and an exercise
in accepting rejection. It’s tough to
try to expound upon the value that a company may realize from sponsoring a
small, 2-person ride across the country, versus the immediate impact they
receive from sponsoring a single day road race with hundreds of participants. We haven’t yet given up though!
That said – we have received some fantastic discounts on
amazing saddles from Brooks England, discounts on backing meals from
Backpacker’s Pantry, and a product donation from Gu. We certainly are appreciative of the support
offered by these companies!
Twitter
We have one now!
Follow us at @LOAAmerica
Biking
Oh yeah…we did sign up to bike 4,400 miles across the
country, didn’t we?!? It’s FINALLY
trying to become Spring here in Indiana, so we’re finally starting to be able
to get out on our bikes again! We’re
going to try to up our mileage every week until we take off, so we have a good
base biking fitness built up before we take off (not to mention getting our
asses used to sitting on our saddles, ouch!).
We only got in about 26 miles last week, so there’s nowhere to go but
up!
We tried out spin classes for the first time a few weeks
ago, and will work those into the mix as well – that’s a good, hard workout in
an hour, and it should help increase our cardio fitness in ways that our slow
pedaling on heavy bikes on the road right now cannot. Bring on the pain!
Route
We’ve had our route and tentative schedule up on the website
for a while now, but we spent several hours this weekend actually planning exact
campgrounds, hostels, or hotels for our overnights! It feels like we took the trip in our minds,
and makes it feel even more real. And we
now have a good idea of how much lodging will cost for the 94 or so days we’ll
be on the road. Thanks mostly to Kansas
and its fantastic plan of letting cyclists camp in its city parks for free, we
should be able to keep our lodging to around $1,500 for the entire summer –
that’s an average of about $17 a day! To
put that in perspective, if we stayed in the cheapest of seedy motels for 94
days, we’d be out about $4,500 – yikes!
We likely won’t post our exact overnight plans on the site,
for safety’s sake, but about 75% of our total overnights will be spent camping,
with another 10% or so spend in hostels or donation-only church or fire
department lodging. Can’t wait to see
what it feels like to live as minimalists for 90 days!
 |
| This is our new backpacking tent! We're going to see a lot of it this summer! |
T-Shirts
We still have t-shirts available and in-stock, so if you don’t
have yours yet, we’re ready to get one to you!
And, Delaware is still shirtless, so if you or anyone you know lives
there, help us cover 100% of the states with Looking Out Across America t-shirts!
Thanks to all of you for your support, and for still reading
these blogs even after we inundate you on Facebook with random updates! Expect more of them to come as the pace of
preparation increases as the trip gets closer!
Monday, April 15, 2013
Residents of Delaware, Louisiana, and South Dakota - another t-shirt giveaway!
Ok DE, LA, and SD - you are the final 3 states without LOAA t-shirts in them!
We have another LOAA supporter who has generously donated a t-shirt to give away to one lucky winner in either Delaware, Louisiana, or South Dakota! Size of your choice!
This contest will run from today through midnight on Friday, April 19th. Share it with your friends in those states!
Without further ado, here's the contest - enter away! You can get up to 2 entries per person - by letting us know what state you live in, and liking us on Facebook :)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
We have another LOAA supporter who has generously donated a t-shirt to give away to one lucky winner in either Delaware, Louisiana, or South Dakota! Size of your choice!
This contest will run from today through midnight on Friday, April 19th. Share it with your friends in those states!
Without further ado, here's the contest - enter away! You can get up to 2 entries per person - by letting us know what state you live in, and liking us on Facebook :)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Monday, April 8, 2013
A Short Preview
A few weekends ago, Erica and I decided to take a little road trip down to Kentucky to check out part of the TransAmerica trail that we will be riding on this summer. Even though our adventure is only a mere 8 weeks away, I think we both needed to see something tangible about the road we will be on. Perhaps it was nothing more than a slight introduction for us…to go out onto the actual roads we will be riding on, as a way of saying “Hello” to the path, which will be our constant companion for the days and months ahead.
If you’ve ever played a sport, given a speech, played a concert, then you can probably relate to some of the feelings we had about this short trip. In basketball, you can practice a million times on a court…but something about that court feels different on game day. With speaking, you can prepare your words over and over in the space you are speaking at, but it all feels changed in a room full of people. I’m sure musicians feel this shift at venues between sound checks and rehearsals to when they hit the stage…the energy is altered when it is showtime. For us, we’ve imagined, dreamed, anticipated, and prepared for this trip in so many ways and for such a long time, but actually getting to be on the road will be something entirely different.
In all of our preparedness for the trip, we have read many books from folks who have also journeyed across the country by bike and they all say the same thing: “Never ask motorists about the roads.” Why? Because driving up and down hills is entirely different than maneuvering a bicycle up and down those same hills. A couple of years ago, I made note of this after Erica and I went on a quick ride to downtown Indianapolis from our home. Downtown Indy is only about 8 miles from where we live. We made the trip into the city pretty quickly, but when we started to head back, I noticed that the ride back felt like a constant uphill climb…turns out it was exactly that. I had never realized this before in my vehicle.
I’m telling you this short anecdote because as we were driving in Kentucky along our route, I started making mental notes about the hills we were going to be climbing in our loaded down bikes. I started counting miles between the big hills and the nearest gas station/convenience store. I’m starting to practice our ride in my head, trying everything I can to mentally prepare myself, though I know the experience will be quite different as we will be weeks into our trip by the time we reach those dreadfully hilly, yet beautiful Kentucky roads. We will have already scaled our way through the Appalachians, and I’m hoping that the roads we will meet again in Kentucky will merely feel like speed bumps by the time we get there. Here are some photos that might help you all visualize the area:
There is also something else we enjoyed on this short trip, perhaps a bit by accident…the path we will be on this summer goes right through the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, a section of Kentucky where several bourbon and whiskey distilleries are located. We decided to take the short tour of the Heaven Hill Distillery, where we learned a little about the heritage of an industry that remains so important to the economy of the state of Kentucky. We also knocked back a couple of small glasses of Heaven Hill’s finest products, which were quite enjoyable. Also, we managed to fit in a quick stop at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, a National Historic Park located in Hodgenville. We love getting to do this kind of stuff,especially if it involves the National Park system…we are a bit geeky in that way!
If there’s one thing I’m especially excited about while we will be on our trip, it will be the opportunity to see those little historical and local treasures that are a part of the various towns and cities along the way. There’s truly nothing like seeing America by bicycle, and at 8 weeks out, I know I can prepare all I want for this adventure, but when it’s showtime I know the journey will provide a new energy, full of surprises. I can’t wait!
If you’ve ever played a sport, given a speech, played a concert, then you can probably relate to some of the feelings we had about this short trip. In basketball, you can practice a million times on a court…but something about that court feels different on game day. With speaking, you can prepare your words over and over in the space you are speaking at, but it all feels changed in a room full of people. I’m sure musicians feel this shift at venues between sound checks and rehearsals to when they hit the stage…the energy is altered when it is showtime. For us, we’ve imagined, dreamed, anticipated, and prepared for this trip in so many ways and for such a long time, but actually getting to be on the road will be something entirely different.
In all of our preparedness for the trip, we have read many books from folks who have also journeyed across the country by bike and they all say the same thing: “Never ask motorists about the roads.” Why? Because driving up and down hills is entirely different than maneuvering a bicycle up and down those same hills. A couple of years ago, I made note of this after Erica and I went on a quick ride to downtown Indianapolis from our home. Downtown Indy is only about 8 miles from where we live. We made the trip into the city pretty quickly, but when we started to head back, I noticed that the ride back felt like a constant uphill climb…turns out it was exactly that. I had never realized this before in my vehicle.
I’m telling you this short anecdote because as we were driving in Kentucky along our route, I started making mental notes about the hills we were going to be climbing in our loaded down bikes. I started counting miles between the big hills and the nearest gas station/convenience store. I’m starting to practice our ride in my head, trying everything I can to mentally prepare myself, though I know the experience will be quite different as we will be weeks into our trip by the time we reach those dreadfully hilly, yet beautiful Kentucky roads. We will have already scaled our way through the Appalachians, and I’m hoping that the roads we will meet again in Kentucky will merely feel like speed bumps by the time we get there. Here are some photos that might help you all visualize the area:
There is also something else we enjoyed on this short trip, perhaps a bit by accident…the path we will be on this summer goes right through the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, a section of Kentucky where several bourbon and whiskey distilleries are located. We decided to take the short tour of the Heaven Hill Distillery, where we learned a little about the heritage of an industry that remains so important to the economy of the state of Kentucky. We also knocked back a couple of small glasses of Heaven Hill’s finest products, which were quite enjoyable. Also, we managed to fit in a quick stop at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, a National Historic Park located in Hodgenville. We love getting to do this kind of stuff,especially if it involves the National Park system…we are a bit geeky in that way!
If there’s one thing I’m especially excited about while we will be on our trip, it will be the opportunity to see those little historical and local treasures that are a part of the various towns and cities along the way. There’s truly nothing like seeing America by bicycle, and at 8 weeks out, I know I can prepare all I want for this adventure, but when it’s showtime I know the journey will provide a new energy, full of surprises. I can’t wait!
Monday, March 25, 2013
A Message from Brandi Carlile and The Twins about LOAA!
Hey guys! Just in case you are completely off the Facebook grid and missed this today - we're cross-posting the video message from Brandi Carlile and The Twins today about Looking Out Across America!
We arrived back home from Brandi's shows at The Beacon Theater this weekend with a renewed excitement for what the Fight the Fear campaign and Looking Out Foundation are going to look like in 2013! We're so honored and humbled to be part of the ongoing efforts of the Looking Out Foundation, and thrilled to know some of the great people who lend their time and energy to championing the causes that the foundation supports.
We arrived back home from Brandi's shows at The Beacon Theater this weekend with a renewed excitement for what the Fight the Fear campaign and Looking Out Foundation are going to look like in 2013! We're so honored and humbled to be part of the ongoing efforts of the Looking Out Foundation, and thrilled to know some of the great people who lend their time and energy to championing the causes that the foundation supports.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Another t-shirt giveaway!
Alright...we have TWO Looking Out Across America T-shirts to give away this time! Two very generous LOAA supporters have purchased extra shirts to donate to a a couple lucky people in the still shirtless states!
It's easy to enter using the giveaway box below - you can enter by letting us know what state you live in, and get another entry for "Liking" our Facebook page! The contest is only open to people living in the currently "LOAA shirtless" states - Delaware, Louisiana, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
It's easy to enter using the giveaway box below - you can enter by letting us know what state you live in, and get another entry for "Liking" our Facebook page! The contest is only open to people living in the currently "LOAA shirtless" states - Delaware, Louisiana, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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