A journey on the Northern Tier

Hello ladies,

I have not been on the forums in quite a while. No particular reason, but time might be one of the main factors. For many years, a long distance, self-supported trip has been on my bucket list. My husband and I have been riding separately for many years due to family issues and one of us needing to be in town at all times. Other family members live a long way away, and their visits allowed us a trip around Lake Ontario in 2011, and a trip on the Allegheny Mountain Loop last year. Both my mother-in-law and father-in-law passed away recently (one in 2010 and one in late 2011, as well as my dad in 2011.) (Our 13 yr old wonderful Labrador retriever died last month!) So we are a little more free to travel by bicycle now. It is bittersweet to be able to leave but the time has come!

We are now only two short weeks from departure! Ben and I are getting ready to leave on a 4200 mile self-supported bicycle ride across the USA. On June 3rd, we will board a train in Baltimore, MD and end in Seattle, WA. From there, we will reassemble the bicycles that Ben so carefully packed and shipped to our friends in Seattle. Then, on June 10th we will dip our rear wheels in the Pacific Ocean in Anacortes, WA, the traditional start of the Adventure Cycling Association’s Northern Tier Bicycle Route and begin our cross country ride. The route will take us through the Cascade Mountains, Glacier National Park, the plains of North Dakota, through Minnesota, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, through Ontario, Canada, to Niagara Falls, and then straight across NY, Vermont, NH, and ending in Bar Harbor, Maine in September.

We love to ride and have wanted to do this ride for a long time! Both Ben and I have ridden the Southern Tier in the past, though not together, and after several short self-supported rides, we decided that we were ready for the “big” one. We will be joined on this ride by our friend, Rusty, a retired science teacher from Kentucky, whom we met riding a few years ago on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He rode the ACA Trans AM last summer from Virginia to Oregon and we did a self-supported ride with him last fall. He is ready for another cross-country ride! Joining us in Fargo, ND will be Jennifer, from Washington State, who rode the Underground Railroad Route with me in 2008, and the Southern Tier with Ben in 2010. We are all very excited about the ride and cannot wait to begin.

Ben and I will be raising funds during our ride for the Wellmont Hospice House Memorial Gardens. Ben was the Medical Director of the House for about 15 years up until he retired and my past three long bicycle rides also were used to raise money for renovations to the House. We were approached early this year about supporting the gardens and this ride quickly morphed into a fundraiser for them.

If you would like to follow the progress of our ride, you can link to this site for our blog.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/2013NorthernTier

If you would like to support the Wellmont Hospice House Memorial Garden Project, here is the link.

https://wellmontfoundation9369.thank....org/AnnesRide

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Annie