Maine-iacs!

So, I have now had my first post-trip night's sleep, after a wonderful lobster dinner (Thanks to Thom Bolduc for the Lobster Shack recommendation!).

When I was a kid my family didn't take many trips. With five children in the house we didn't have the resources to go on vacation very often. My Dad, a carpenter at a lumber mill (and later at a hospital), and my Mom, an assembly line worker at a television plant near Chicago (when they used to make TVs in the United States) worked opposite shifts so one parent was always home with the kids. Just getting through the work week must have been enough of a challenge, let alone planning a family vacation.

One time, however, I can remember going to the Wisconsin Dells for a couple of days. Just the name Wisconsin Dells conjured exotic images. Even though only a couple of hours away by car from our home in the Chicago area, it seemed a world away in my imagination. The memory of lying in the back of the station wagon on pillows and blankets (can you imagine that now?), looking out the back window listening to Three Dog Night sing On the Road to Shambala on my transistor radio seems like yesterday. I probably didn't realize it at the time but the travel bug was planted early (or maybe it is a genetic memory from my Irish and Italian ancestors who left their homelands to come to a new country). That trip to the Dells made me realize that there was a world beyond my house and neighborhood. As I grew my parents encouraged me to explore and to push myself.

Sometimes it is hard to tell if we are swimmers in the river of life, choosing the direction we go, or if we are leaves floating on the surface, going where the currents and eddies take us. I have received so many unexpected gifts from this trip, listened to and learned from so many people, and had the opportunity to share an amazing adventure with the people I love the most. Who could have expected so much when we took those first pedal strokes away from the Pacific Ocean, away from our home and friends in Walla Walla, and toward the coast of Maine? I must have had some expectations for the trip, but for the life of me I can't think of what they were.

Yesterday after we dipped our tires and were standing by the bikes a man came up to us and asked us what we were doing. After telling him he asked a question no one, and I mean NO ONE has asked in our nearly 4000 miles of biking: why? I laughed at the novelty of the question. And I couldn't answer it. Maybe some day I will be able to.

I really want to thank all of you who have followed us for the words of encouragement. There were times when those words helped us get through hard days. This was truly a team effort. Without the help from our friends and neighbors in Walla Walla (thank you Jen and Thom Bolduc and Shanna Johnson for helping with the house and all your other kindnesses, especially getting medicine shipped overnight for Alison and squirt guns for the kids!) we could not have made this trip. Thanks to our families for their support as well. We wouldn't be the people we are if it wasn't for our parents and siblings to help us along our path. And thanks to our work colleagues and employers (Walla Walla Clinic and Pioneer Middle School) for understanding when we needed extra time off to accomplish this feat.

I don't intend on letting this trip end here. We are contemplating on how to take what we have learned and make something more of it. Please check in for an update on our plans (give us a few weeks, however, as we will be jumping right into work and the "real world" as Gus called it as soon as we return to Walla Walla).

~ Dan

Shambala (Three Dog Night)

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain
With the rain in Shambala
Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame
With the rain in Shambala

Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind
On the road to Shambala
Everyone is lucky, everyone is so kind
On the road to Shambala

How does your light shine, in the halls of Shambala

I can tell my sister by the flowers in her eyes
On the road to Shambala
I can tell my brother by the flowers in his eyes
On the road to Shambala

How does your light shine, in the halls of Shambala