An introduction of sorts

 I've never had a blog before, but this seems as good a time as any to start one. In fact, it seems like a better time than any other time before to start a blog, at least for me. The main reason is that I am planning a bike trip. A very long bike trip. Much longer than anything I have ever done before-which isn't saying that much-and there are sure to be adventures along my way that I would like to share.

This trip was originally going to be done with my bestest friend in the whole world, Brittany. The whole thing was really her idea. She's pretty awesome. This is a picture of us in college.

I'm wearing the giant wax lips. Yeah. Thats right.

Brittany can't go with me this summer, but I've decided to forge ahead and go anyway. I know she'll be with me in spirit. My dad is going to be joining me for at least part of the journey, and that'll be awesome. This is my dad:


Very cool dad.

So the trip: I'm planning on biking across the northern part of the states, beginning in Seattle and ending up in  Ann Arbor, MI. I'm going to be starting graduate school at University of Michigan in the fall, so I am hoping the be able to find a sweet apartment once I get there. I can't wait to go to apartment showings and be able to say that I biked to them...from Seattle.

I am going to be following maps from Adventure Cycling, which is a fantastic organization and resource for anyone interested in bicycling. They publish maps specifically for bikers, marking the locations of campsites, motels, grocery stores, bike shops, etc. in addition to regular map stuff like roads and elevations. Plus, the routes they publish utilize the prettiest and most bike friendly roads around America.  Here is a map of all the routes that they publish maps for in the US:

People have frequently asked me over the last several months, "why are you doing this?", and I'd like to quote my pal George Mallory and say, "because it's there"! In contrast, I would like to NOT take a cue from George Mallory in that he ended up frozen on a mountain for 75 years.

In the spirit of not meeting some unfortunate demise on my trip, I've done quite a bit of preparation. That is going to be the subject of my next blog post, which will be along later this week. Cheers!