Friday, September 15, 2006

Road Trip Day One!

Canby, OR. to Bellingham, WA. Ferry Columbia, Ketchikan, Alaska

Road Trip Log Update: After years of riding and traveling over 30,000 miles the most important lesson we have learned from our road trips is how to overcome and adapt. This applies to road conditions, natural disasters, difficult people, as well as extreme weather. As we approach our last two states, Alaska and North Dakota, in our goal of riding all 50 we knew our trip to Alaska would need to be altered since JillMarie is 4 months pregnant. The majority of miles we’ve traveled have been on our own bikes starting from our driveway, though we have flown to destinations and rented bikes, we have never had a “chase vehicle” when traveling. In our attempt to win the race between time, money and energy we opted to take the Fat Boy and the truck on the ferry to Ketchikan, ride the island and then ferry back to St. Rupert, riding the rest of the journey home. JillMarie opted to follow in the truck with 2 year old Lily and we brought our 15 year old friend Tariq as a fellow explorer. This year the Ironman would have a captive audience and Sugarlips would have an altered experience, which was for all the right reasons. Her outlook, “Alaska is big territory and having a limited excursion just gives us an excuse to come back at another time.” Everyone keeps asking what we are going to do when we have ridden all 50 states. Our response is, “We’re going to go back to all the places we enjoyed the most.” From the research we done to prepare for the trip we can tell we are in for some beautiful territory and a definite reason to come back.

Note: There is no Internet connection on the ferries, and Ketchikan is limited with its service. Travel logs maybe sporadic as we find internet opportunities, so stay tuned!