“Everything I do surrounds these pieces of my life that often change”

Some of you teachers and students out there (those who still get a summer break, anyway!) will know exactly what I’m talking about right now when I mention that feeling you have as you get down to just a couple of days standing between you and a few blissful months of freedom.  It gets WAY more difficult to pull yourself out of bed and get ready for real life in the mornings, harder to focus on what you should actually be doing versus thinking about your summer plans, and is just generally an exciting time.

Highways - something we won't see much of this summer!

That’s pretty much how we’ve been feeling lately…we’re deep into that transition period where your thoughts and energy are both directed toward the future, while you have to continually struggle to stay in the moment at work and other life responsibilities.  We’ve both been actively handing off our responsibilities at work, and training colleagues to take over projects that we are working on.  I (Erica) am also transitioning my responsibilities as Treasurer of a professional organization to our incoming Treasurer, so that he can at least stay afloat while I’m gone over the summer!

In the meantime at home, we’ve been packing gear and making lists of last minute items we need to pick up.  We’ve been cleaning house to prepare for my brother to come and watch the pups, cats, and house for the summer (thanks Ryan!).  We’ve been working on the ever-growing list of things to do/note about how exactly to care for the dogs, cats, and house.  It is amazing to think of all the small things that you do out of habit on a regular basis, that clearly won’t be second-nature to anyone else walking in and taking over your responsibilities (both at home, and at work!).  For a control freak like me, it’s going to be hard to let go and not worry that things aren’t going smoothly at home, but I’m sure I’ll find plenty of things to control while we’re out on the road!

 Any remaining training rides around home will no longer be on unloaded and relatively lightweight bikes – we’re going to load them up whenever we go out now to get used to how they handle with the extra weight on them.  And, um, get our legs used to doing extra work.  Before we hit the mountains...  Which happens to be a mere 4 days into our ride…

So we had our Indianapolis kick-off party this past weekend (which was a really awesome time, thanks to all of you who came out to the party!), and are currently struggling through a short week at work.  We’ll pick my parents up from the airport on May 31^st after work, and begin the trek to the East Coast!  In my true no-spare-moment traveling style, I’ve lined us up for attending a music festival on June 1^st in New Jersey (who else will be at the Appel Farm Festival?), driving to D.C. the next day for our East Coast kick-off party on the evening of June 2^nd, then hopping on down to Williamsburg, VA for a bright and early start to our trip on June 3^rd.  We may or may not begin this trip in the absolute best imaginable way – hungover and exhausted…

We’ll have at least a few people accompany us on our ride out of Yorktown, VA that morning, so we better be ready to transition from weekend partiers to dedicated cyclists!  Not gonna lie…since my parents will be accompanying us by car for the first couple days of our trip, we’ll probably let all of our gear ride in my Jeep with them.  No need to do more work than is necessary as we ease into this daily high-mileage routine J

Another transition that has already begun…cyclist tans!  We rode about 35 miles a couple of weeks ago, and came back with awesome tan lines – our knees, arms (but only from short sleeve to our gloves!), and funky lines on our feet from sandal straps.  And this was while wearing 50 SPF sunscreen…just wait til you see what these lines look like by the time we reach the Pacific!

And now the “this is the last time we’ll do X until September” things are starting to happen…last time we’ll mow our lawn tonight, last time eating at our favorite Chinese place down the road (where they embarrassingly know our orders by heart), last trip to the dog park with the boys, last local bike ride, last time we’ll see our friends…the list goes on.  Change is hard – but we know this will be worth it!

Auctions!

In case you somehow missed this info elsewhere - we have a couple of great auctions up and running on Ebay right now!  All proceeds from these auctions go directly to the Looking Out Foundation via Looking Out Across America (and will contribute to our total funds donated to the foundation on our silly, oversized check presented to the foundation at Raise the Roof in September!).  Bid often and generously!

First up is an autographed print of Brandi Carlile and the band (autographed by BC only).  Print is 16 x 24, nicely mounted and ready for you to put it in your frame of choice!  Photo was taken by our pal Ruthi Ellis David (you can meet her in person if you come to our D.C. kickoff party!), and is a beautiful action shot, perfectly capturing the energy of Brandi and the band on stage.  Here's a photo of the print - it doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea :)  Get out there and bid!  Ebay Auction - Brandi Print

Next up (I'm starting to sound like Bob Barker..."next item up for bids...") are 2 tickets to a Brandi Carlile Hard Way Home Summer Convoy tour date of your choice (some shows excluded, check auction for available dates) INCLUDING MEET & GREET PASSES!  Talk about a memorable night, right?  Get out there and bid on it!  The activity has already been pretty intense on this one guys - best of luck!  Ebay Auction - 2 Tix + Meet & Greet

If these get a little too rich for your blood, don't forget, you can always donate any amount you'd like to the foundation using that PayPal button over there on the right!  As of our last update we're up to about $1,750 in donations to the Looking Out Foundation through that LOAA link!  Way to go guys!  We have about 3.5 months to keep growing that number :)

T-21 Days Update...

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

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

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.

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 25^th, 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 2^nd.  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

 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

$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!

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

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!