Ice Screamer.

After dinner tonight, we took the tandem for a ride. Our inspiration and goal? Ice cream! We hooked up the lights, pedaled together though the night to the store, and 6 miles later we were home with strawberries and vanilla ice cream.

It was totally worth it. Yum.

Maybe we'll even visit Canada.

We both sent away for our passports this past week. Jenny's expires in July, so she is renewing hers and Brett will be getting his for the first time! This is a good thing, applying for them now, because it takes more than a month to get them, and we want to have them before we go. Our current route plan takes us through part of Canada, roughly between Buffalo and Detroit. I guess that would make this trip a cross-continent trip as well as a cross-country trip!

In other news, we finished painting a difficult section of our house's exterior today. We work so well together on projects like this. Brett is good at and eager to do some parts, while Jenny is unafraid of other parts that Brett shies away from (like being on the ladder propped on top of the porch roof). It feels so good to accomplish a big part of something that we've been wanting to do for a year and a half. Hopefully we'll soon do the same on the front of the house that we just did on the back side. Also, this teamwork will come in very handy this Summer, as we will be operating a single vehicle together for a LOT of hours, and setting up and breaking down camp day after day, and working through "adventures."

Jenny climbs up the ladder

She's so brave!

Almost done!

Just about every day we tell each other how excited we are for this trip.

My amazing husband.

I am feeling especially lucky today. It has been a long week and we have been so busy. I have had a little cold for the last two days, school and work have taken up a lot of time and there are just always so many things to do and so many decisions to make. We haven't gotten to ride the bike much this week. But, through it all, even in the tough times, life is still great!

I am looking forward to our trip so much! And I'm incredibly grateful to have such an amazing partner to share this life with.

Here we are, the day before we got married.

New picture.

Spartan stopped by this afternoon and tried out the bike. He also took a nice picture of the two of us.

Our first few rides!

Since getting the tandem, we've taken several successful rides with it! We've ridden downtown a couple of times, and enjoyed ourselves every time we get on the bike. Guy was nice enough to take some pictures of us on one of those rides.

We're still making small adjustments to the seat positions, and Brett is learning how to shift more effectively on a tandem. Jenny is adjusting to the stoker position where there is little control over the bike. Mostly, we're learning to communicate better both verbally and non-verbally (through pedal strokes and leaning and such) to make the experience both more fun and more relaxing! We're pretty confident that the small kinks will all get worked out well before we depart Northampton this Summer.

For those who've never tried a recumbent bicycle, it allows a more relaxed body position, and a comfier seat. It also allows for more expansive views to the front (for Brett) and to the sides (for Jenny). In that sense, things just seem easier on the recumbent tandem. Of course, going up hills can be at a bit more "relaxed" pace, too, but we have plenty of gears and we never thought we were going to set any speed records. We have three months for this adventure, after all!

In other news, we ordered some new panniers from Ortlieb. They are blue! They'll hold the bulk of our gear on our trip, and perhaps our groceries on local trips before and after. We haven't decided whether to haul the trailer as well, or buy some more panniers instead. Suggestions?

Here we are at the bottom of our first big hill!

We own a very cool bike.

Last Sunday, Len and Jan delivered our bike! Brett was still in Boston playing games at Alex's party, but first thing Monday morning we went for a ride.

Our very own tandem recumbent!

Getting ready...

Wait for me!

Well, Now We HAVE To Go!

Today we agreed with two graduate students from Smith College that they will rent our apartment for the summer! Now we *have* to go on this crazy adventure!

Of course, this is great news, and it will help us significantly with the cost of our trip. Since we are buying the used RANS Screamer (we really need some pictures of it, don't we?), we will have spent quite a bit before we even get to leave the yard, but we're sure it'll be worth it. You only live once, and this is an adventure that we've both dreamed about for a long time.

Some people say that we're especially adventurous to ride a tandem, but we think we're up to the challenge of working together on one bike...for three months. We've spent a few hours on a tandem (and several more in a tandem kayak) before now, and we're still eager for more, having worked out some initial issues. We're really excited to have lined up the machine we'll be riding this early so that we get to practice a bunch this Spring.

It is weird to think of renting out our living space, though. This is where we always come home to. It's where we sleep, eat, and play. It's where all our games are. Those are our pieces of art and dishes and that's our bed. We're really okay renting it all, but it's strange, too.

This might actually happen...

We really might buy a recumbent tandem bike soon! The nice people who let us try their tandems got back to us last night with a figure for selling their RANS Screamer, and it's in our price range!

!!!