When One Door Closes....

So it's late but I'm really feeling like an update is in order. Frenetic days and long, late nights at the shop have kept me away from blogging and have seemed to drain me creatively. I guess what I'm trying to do here is confess in some witty manner that the following is not something I wrote explicitly for our blog. Our Indiegogo campaign has wound down to it's finale by the time any of y'all read this and the following is what was posted as our closing comment. Read. Enjoy. And be sure to check back with our blog shortly!  

Wow. In approximately one hour, our campaign will reach the end of it's term. Though not as financially successful as we had hoped, we are looking at this experience as a success. First of all, a majority of you that donated don't even know us. One of you out there even donated anonymously. It's this type of thing that has absolutely blown our minds. With 375 Facebook shares, 2 Twitter shares, and a Google Plus share, the word about our mission has surely spread. We recently found out that folks from all over the world have been watching our campaign; from France and Europe, to Australia, to even Uruguay and Peru. With all of these views from all of these places, it really gives us hope that our humble journey around the USA may inspire someone out there to journey out of their comfort zone and prove to themselves that they too can meet the nicest people. Thank you all for all of your support these past 45 days. It's really meant more to us than you'll ever know. And be sure to keep an eye on us for updates coming soon, as we will take off and hit the road in 14 days! 

Indiegogo and You!

It just came to me that some of you, my beloved blog readers, may not have had the opportunity to follow our Facebook page. If you haven't, then you've missed out on the announcement about our Indiegogo campaign. With just 25 days left to campaign and only 3% of our funding goal met, it's safe to say we're getting pretty nervous. It would be super great if y'all could take a moment and go check this out! If you can't pitch in financially, you could really help our cause by Facebooking, emailing, or blogging about our project and our campaign. Thanks in advance for all the love! You can find it at; https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/you-meet-the-nicest-people 

That Super Embarrassing Moment.....

When you thought you hit post, when in all actuality you hit save. Yup. That happened.... Oh well! Enjoy this belated post anyway!


Life around here has been a lot like the early spring in Southern Oregon. 

For those of you who were not able to make it to our fundraiser in April, you were dearly missed. Since you weren't able to attend, I thought I'd have a little fun with this post and share our soundtrack for the event with you, so you can live vicariously through our groovy tunes. Enjoy!

Home- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

American Girl- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Horse with no name- America

American Tin Man- America

Pink Houses- John Cougar Mellencamp

We're an American Band- Grand Funk Railroad

Living in the USA- Steve Miller Band

US Blues- Greatful Dead

Truckin'-Greatful Dead

Sweet Home Alabama- Lynard Skynard

American Pie- Don McLean

American Woman- Guess Who

Back in the USA- Chuck Berry

Young American- David Bowie

America- Simon and Garfunkel

America- Neil Diamond

R.O.C.K. in the USA- John Cougar Mellencamp

Living in America- James Brown

For what it's worth- Buffalo Springfield

Georgia on my mind- Ray Charles

Two of us- Beatles

Bobby McGee- Janis Joplin

Anything from the Remember the Titans soundtrack

Almost anything from Forest Gump soundtrack

Be sure to salt and pepper this fabulous playlist with a bit of The Beach Boys, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 2 Cellos, and The Vitamin String Quartet to get the desired musical effect.

Did we miss something on our list? What would you suggest? Let me know!

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!

Did You Know?

Along with this blog and a Facebook page, we also have an Instagram account. You can find and follow us with #mytrail90crew.

Inspiration

Bobby found this awesome Gopro video recently. Give it a look-see if you feel like being inspired :)

2014 proclamation

     Today is the second day of a new year. 2014. No longer do we say to people "Next year we'll be taking this ridiculous and epic adventure..." This is the year it all happens. Now, I am a firm nonbeliever in New Year's Resolutions. I feel they set one up for failure. I've decided, instead of making a resolution, I will make a proclamation. We will be packing up our lives in six short months and heading out to who knows what and I will be documenting this, one blog, Facebook, and Instagram update at a time. And rather than a resolution- a guilt fueled wish to document all this preparation, I've decided to make some changes this year to my blogging style. As you can clearly see, there has been a serious lack of blog entries for the past couple of months. Aside from life in general pulling me away from my duties, I've found that I have a serious lack of inspiration. Every time I sit down in front of my computer, a very frustrating sequence of events goes down; first I'm determined and full of ideas. Then as I begin typing, I start to pick my work apart. I don't want to be negative and I want to keep the focus on My Trail 90 Crew. This has been really difficult lately (hence the lack of entries) as our lives and the preparations for our journey have not always been coming up roses. So I've given myself permission to set myself free. Yes, this blog is an excellent PR tool but keeping it in a Pollyanna group voice has left me feeling creatively drained. So I move forward in this year and the final months at home with a new and personal voice. When I doubt my decision, I'm reminded that this blog isn't just for you, dear readers. It's for us.