Blast Off

We (the whole group, and all the families) are in Portland ME ready and waiting to leave on our big adventure at 9am (sharpish) in the morning. Portland Maine is weird. Good weird, with lots of art galleries and pubs and bike shops. Also, just regular weird, with crack heads,  drunks, overly aggressive hippies , and a super confusing labyrinth of one way streets .

The adventure I have had getting to portland is a whole story in itself. Between driving 2000 miles, getting lost, car trouble, rancid gyro meat, and a whole lot of "you're not from around here are you", Kinzler , my mother and I had a metric ton of fun. It feels like I have already had a huge adventure and I have not even climbed on my bike yet

We got in Friday to Cape Cod. Jane and Geoff were kind enough to feed us get us ferry tickets to Marthas Vineyard. Saturday Kinzler and I took a little tour of the island that turned into a 30 miler. Not a bad ride, and it let Taylor and I stretch our legs and lungs which had gone quite unused for several days in the car. If you have not been to the Vineyard, as the privileged few call it, imagine the most idyllic beach town that you can. Then multiply that image by ten, add piles of cash, a dash of entitlement, and a table spoon of tourist and you’re about on the money. All kidding aside it was a great day. The best part of the whole day was heading back to Jane and Geoff's house on Cape Cod and having real lobsters boiled for (including the other two riders Bryce and Nick) how to properly steam a lobster. I have never had a real lobster fresh out of the ocean before, and woke up this morning thinking about how good it tasted.

The last thing I did today was pack up my stuff again, this time ready to hit the highway. A slightly unexpected addition came when Bryce dropped off the goodies that had been sent from Clif Bar. Backstory: Bryce, who is a great writer and obviously a real gracious gentleman, wrote Clif Bar and told them what we are doing. They responded by sending us more product than we know what to do with, literally. I could not carry even one quarter of my share (see picture) of the goodie package. In turn for this awesome handout I decided to mention it on here, since all ten people who read this thing need know that CB is actually pretty neat.

I cannot say thank you enough to my family and the families of those who I am traveling with for everything that has been done to get us to this point but let me try.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

A drop in the bucket of what they deserve.

Today it begins .- Dangerous Dan