Author Archives: Jason

It’s official – we’re married!

November 16, 2013

We had a small ceremony in Deep Creek, Maryland, where we rented a vacation home and gathered with our closest family and friends. Our ceremony was short and sweet, and the highlight was this video we made telling our story so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc94SJDyrUM&feature=youtu.be

We ate cake.

Our wedding cake and homemade toppers

And we posed for pictures.

Cyclists at our wedding pretend to ride bikes.

Do you see the beautiful arch in background? Daisy refused to have real flowers (being named after a flower made her avoid the real thing). Instead, her mother organized the guests and together we made tissue flowers to decorate the arch we got married under. It was lovely.

Our friend Derek got ordained online and officiated the ceremony.

A friend got ordained online to officiate. He was great!

Jason’s grandmother was an honored guest.

Daisy’s best friend from childhood (And also her senior prom date!) played music for us all evening.

Once the fun was done, we somehow had to fit all the leftover food back in our subcompact car… along with us and Daisy’s parents.

How much can we fit in a tiny car?

It was a tight fit!

We had to pile more stuff around the passengers to fit it all.

We had to pile stuff around the passengers to fit it all.

In all, the wedding was more successful than we had dared to hope. We fed 20 people for four meals, we made our own wedding dinner, and put our own twist on time-honored traditions. Daisy’s wedding dress? A sport dress made in her hometown – we’ll dye it a different color and take it on tour with us. Jason’s wedding outfit? Thank goodness for Amazon prime! Also, it turns out that ‘slim fit’ is not slim enough – we had to have his shirt and vest both taken in. In the end, it was memorable and fun. There was almost no drama, but probably because the house rule was to listen to bridezilla… er… Daisy.

We’ll be taking our ‘honeymoon’ next week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, on our new touring bikes. We’ll keep updating to let you know how the gear holds up and where we stay when all the campgrounds are closed for the season.

The happy couple ready for the next adventure.

P.S. – For those of you who knew Hamlet, the service dog we trained this last year, you’ll be pleased to know that we are welcoming another trainee after the honeymoon!

Live your dreams

Puppies are inspiring. They live their dreams everyday.

Jason and I have both been in college for over 10 years. As you can guess, this is enough to make anyone a little nutty. The assumed next step for both of us is to move immediately into long-term careers and settle down, but during the last 10+ years we’ve had too much time to dream of what we would rather be doing. We have both dreamed of escaping the ivory tower, of finding adventure, and of being self-sufficient, independent and free of 9 to 5 obligations.

My academic advisers thought I was crazy… at first. Now, they are among the most vocal of our supporters. One of Jason’s supervisors had a similar dream before starting his career: to travel Europe for a year with his wife. He didn’t do it though, the lure of a job too tempting, and he’s regretted it ever since. We refuse to live with that regret – we are going to take our dream tour!

A dream fulfilled – biking in Yosemite Valley

The truth is, if not now, when? The other truth is, anytime. Too often, we make decisions based on what we’re supposed to do and what career path we’re supposed to take, always saving dreams for “later”. In the past year we’ve decided not to wait, and to trust that somehow things will work out when we return. We’ve been saving money for the past year, and even on graduate student salaries we have enough to fund the tour and to survive for a few months after the tour concludes.

Our goal is to craft a worthy story, and hiding out in an ivory tower has narrow appeal. We’re taking to the streets! Hopefully, we’ll inspire at least a few people to try something new they never considered before. At the very least, we’ll have an interesting bullet point on our resumes when we get back.

A beautiful moment on the Camino de Santiago.

Jason hiking unencumbered in Northern Spain.

Previous trips and other blogs

Darling, this ain’t our first rodeo.

Daisy has logged 10,000+ mi (15,000 km) cycle touring, and has brought Jason along for 3,500 of those miles. Needless to say, we have a good idea of the gear we need, what to expect, how and where we like to camp, what we like to eat, how we like to handle the mountain passes, etc.

If you want to read about some of our previous tours, check out dandjadventures. On that blog we wrote about our trip from Mexico to Canada in May/June of 2012, and about a short Spring Break trip in March of 2013 to Harrison Hot Springs, BC, Canada. Those posts will give you a taste of what we’ll write about as we’re on the road, keep you a little busy while we are still prepping for our Pan-American trip, and hopefully get you a lot more excited about the trip we’ll start in May 2014!

Bicycle touring is gaining in popularity, and I believe since the internet allows cyclists to easily share stories and route ideas, more and more folks keep getting on their bikes. They do this in a variety of ways – from fully loaded touring in remote areas with a tent and food for 4 days at a time, to a light bag packed with lunch and a credit card for motels.

You’d be surprised who is out there doing it, too. Some of our favorite blogs to read are about families. Here are a few blogs that we have followed: The Pedal Powered Family, The Family Verhage, and The Vogel Family.

It is pretty easy to get ideas about where to bike through on our upcoming trip, since there are a bunch of folks blogging about their recent trips! Here are a few we’ve been checking out: Going South, Life is Like a Box of Chocolates, and HOPE.

You can find more by web-searching Cycling the Pan-American Highway or perusing crazyguyonabike.com.

Now that you have plenty of reading material, I can leave you be for now. … Oh, did you think you would get work done today? Have fun!

Initial route ideas

Where will we go?

That is the question! Well, a 1-2 year trip can get you from Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost town in South America). This is our goal, and it will be 18,000+ miles (30,000 km) of cycling.

We came to focus on this route for a variety of reasons. Here are a few:
1. We wanted to bike in some remote, mountainous regions. Alaska and Canada are a good start, and the Andes in South America will also fit the bill!
2. We both know Spanish. Daisy is fluent, but I will have refresh my memory…
3. It is a popular route that others have blogged about. It is often called “riding the spine” and route information is available.
4. Most of the countries are very safe. But of course there are places to be more careful in than we would be in the US or Canada. And,
5. Cycling from so far north (65°) to so far south (55°) is just an amazing achievement!

Below is a sketch of the route we expect to follow for the North and Central American part of our trip. We’ve started putting a good deal of thought into this part of the route already. I’ll write later about all of the sights there are to see along the way.

Expected route through North and Central America

Below is a rough sketch of the route through South America. This route is pretty unknown right now because we don’t know yet exactly where we will want to go. Take a look:

Rough idea of route through South America

Columbia has certainly gotten a bad reputation in the US, but people who have cycled through recently often highlight it as one of their favorite sections through the Americas. Among the beautiful scenery and friendly residents, which are common to many countries, Columbia also has these awesome “Casas de Ciclistas” – a group of hostels that support bike tourists.

Also, I should mention that the preferred way to get to Columbia from Panama is via a cruise. (There is no road through the Darién Gap.) But, by cruise I actually mean a small boat, perhaps a catamaran like the Gypsy Moth. A few days on the ocean, broken up by a visit to some islands – its sounds good.

The full trip from north to south pushes 1.5-2 years because you have to wait for winter to thaw before heading the last leg south to Ushuaia. Also, it is just nice to take shorter days cycling and relish the time, or take the more mountainous route to fill those extra months!

Read on to see our latest posts.

The Philtrons Pedal North

Cycling the Americas

Author Archives: Jason

It’s official – we’re married!

Live your dreams

Previous trips and other blogs

Initial route ideas