The Grand Adventure Starts

June, 2016, I am taking my son on a bike ride. A bike ride you think? What's so daring about that, that this woman would start a blog to chronicle the whole process? It's just a bike ride. Well dear reader. I'm taking my kid on a probably 500 mile bike ride - last count was 466 miles - and neither of us have biked more than 5. On a kids bike and a cruiser. on a paved bike trail. God help us from my crazy plan.

I place the blame squarely on Elisabeth and Rachel for this.

Let me start.

Elisabeth and Rachel were two random but lovely strangers who are - were - biking across the US of A and bringing education to kids camps, classrooms and all manner of forums on the topic of solar power. And bikes. I confess I don't quite remember what exactly it was, but it was interesting enough. Through Couchsurfing.com they had contacted me and asked to spend the night at my house before they carried on. They planted the seed. It would be nice to go cycle with my son for a week in the summer.

Which over the next two months and how well camping for a week just him and I went, broke through the mental soil and started to take more shape until three weeks ago I looked to my husband and told him The Great Plan.

Andrew and I are going to cycle from our home in Eastern Iowa to Milwaukee in Wisconsin. We would conquer the lovely state of Wisconsin and visit a great lake and immerse ourself in some culture, see the sights, commune with nature and visit some friends from World of Warcraft.

So here I am. Departure day is June 5th, 2016. I have 10 months to find us bikes, to arm myself with as much knowledge as I possibly can to help us and solidify the route that we'll take. We'll have 2-3 weeks to complete our trip. We have my husband to get to us if there is an emergency in Iowa and my friend Don and his wife Mary when we are in Wisconsin who can get to us wherever we are within an hour.

This is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. But we have the means, the motivation and I want to see my son experiencing things and learning to take a chance, to do something new and exciting, scary even. I turn 35 in a month and I feel like I need to have more adventure in my life as well.

So it starts.