And one more thing... Thanks

This whole trip was #1 on my bucket list, so there are some people I need to thank for making it happen. There is a whole lot more to the trip than just riding the bike across the country.  It took a plan and some willing participants.

First, I need to thank Nicholas for taking his summer and spending it with his crazy aunt and uncle (and their dog) in a 23' motor home rambling across the country at a blistering pace of 80 +/- 40 miles a day.  While we have joked about doing this trip with Nicholas for a couple of years, we started talking seriously with him almost a year ago before he had his drivers license.  With some help from his mom and dad, he decided he would give it a try.  Without him, the whole self-supported trip would fall apart.  I hope you had as much fun as we did.

Nicholas did a fantastic job of driving the RV and navigating the route, usually by himself.  He is an incredibly responsible 16 year old.  When we would meet people out on the road and tell them what we were doing, they would always ask "where's your stuff".  Then we would explain that our 16 year old nephew was following us with the RV and then they knew we were absolutely crazy.

I have to thank Beth for going along with such a hair-brain idea and making it happen. There was a lot of discussion about different ways to ride across the country over the past few years.  One thing was made very clear from day one.... we aren't camping in tents! There are ways to ride from motel-to-motel with a car as support, but that takes even more planning, or just sign up with a commercial tour and not worry about any of the planning.  An RV looked like a good way to go, but we have never owned one.  So making the financial commitment to buy an RV just for this trip was a huge decision on her part.

And Beth has also carried the lion's share of day-to-day support doing a lot of laundry, shopping, cooking, checking us into RV parks, and a good share of driving.  So I can't thank her enough.  The next big trip is all yours!

I really need to thank all of our friends and family that came out to meet us along the way, gave us a place to stay, had dinner with us, fed us or just said "Hi".  We really appreciated all the support.

And a special thank you to our neighbors, Clark and Judy, who took care of a problem with our rented guest house.  We had hardly left the state before the air conditioner went out on Memorial Day weekend.  But Clark had it fixed by the next Tuesday and no more problems since.