Waking from the deep Winter slumber

    Clearly there's been a bit of an absence around here. Frankly, that's just how it goes sometimes. I'm learning to let it go. So now the sun is coming out and riding season has begun for those of us that are blessed enough to call Southern Oregon our stomping grounds. We all seem to be shaking ourselves out of our long winters' nap and are ready to come out and play. Not to say that we weren't all getting down to business these past number of days. In the time since my last entry we have (in no particular order): posted our first video to YouTube, finalized our basic route around the country, held a number of shop days, made impressive headway on the documentary, finalized our parts list and started ordering parts, and increased our Facebook Likes from 55 to 114. In addition to all this, we've been preparing for and planning a fundraising event due to go down on April 5th.

    We've also been spending a lot of time sharing our story with countless awesome folks in our lives- including our employers. I've been so blessed to find the job of my dreams teaching preschool at the Medford YMCA. Such is my luck to find such a gem of a situation at such a complicated point in my life. Adam and I both have been so very blessed with the outpouring of love and support we continue to get from all of our friends and family members. It's so nice to remember when situations get strained.

This is where we spend every free moment these days

    As we worked and worried, something spectacular happened; After a short time of installing a donate button on our Facebook page, someone donated. Someone donated! Someone out there gave tangible, uplifting, and encouraging support to our project! A HUGE shout out of appreciation to the lovely Liz Chapman for being the very first donor to My Trail 90 Crew!

   We had another miraculous event happen this evening while we were all replacing our tubes and tires. The neighbor across the way gave us a nearly new, super light weight Big Agnes packing tent. For free. Due to a little bit of a language gap, he doesn't really understand our trip- he, as he told us, knew we go camping a lot. This kind gesture from our neighbor just put some much needed funds back into our road money account. A bit later, that same neighbor wandered by and we chatted about our bikes. "One day you'll have brand new bikes. when you're rich". We halfheartedly agreed and he told us, "Yeah, when your rich, you know. In a couple weeks". I'm taking this good omen and I'm running with it.

    I confess, in spite of all the serendipitous opportunities we've had lately, I still get swept up in personal and professional deadlines, stress of the unknown, and the pressure from the ever ticking clock. I remind myself that we all spent so much time planning for the future of this trip, that we now need to revel in the greasy hands and long days we're finding ourselves in right now. It's finally time to get our hands dirty, and as they say, put the rubber to the road!

Where to begin?

Begin at the beginning...

                                                           

     

      It all started with an idea. One of those ideas that you think, "yeah, sure, that could be rad" and that's about it. An idea, a maybe-some-day-we-should. But that's the thing with ideas. Sometimes they can misbehave and get away from you. You find the idea in the strangest places; on your commute to work, or while you're doing the laundry or grocery shopping. Then this pesky idea starts to affect your conversations and before you know it, this dreamy little idea, conceived over a few pints of beer has put on her big girl pants and becomes a real big idea to grapple with. No longer a muse, this has become a chosen reality. This is about the best way I can describe the forming of My Trail 90 Crew.
     Why am I telling you this? Because this is the story of us. We're a motley crew of ragtag mechanics, travelers, and psycho-spiritual rejuvenation evangelists. It's said that you can't choose your family but we are so blessed to say that this is not our case. We're a funky little family that began as neighbors- strangers, really, living on the same street. Adam and I were newly weds and a bit apprehensive to be living in this particular 'hood. Bobby was this shirtless, shoe less curiosity living across the street. And Tyler? Well we were convinced, due to his pristine Mercedes, that he was a true blue drug dealer (we later discovered that he is tragically responsible with his bills, thus scoring him an epic ride). Feinn was a blessed addition a little further in to this adventure. We all got to know one another and over the years have come to discover and cherish the crazy stories we accumulate together. Through ups and downs, we all kept looking around and realized that the people always standing by us, always encouraging us was, well, us. And now this family of ours has come up with one whopper of an idea.      

Mr. Tyler

The Lovely Feinn and Bobby

Adam and Kristen