In the beginning...

Several years ago my husband decided that biking across the USA was on his bucket list. If you know anything about John you know that when he puts his mind to something it will get done. After several negotiations (I will call them) we landed on the Summer of 2015 as our target for this trip. John was really hoping to go alone or with a tour group in 2009 before we had kids, however in the Fall of 2008 he was approached by a Rotarian regarding the possibility of a Group Study Exchange trip to Taiwan in the Spring of 2009. He and I agreed that he couldn't pass up this opportunity and thus the biking adventure was postponed. Charlotte was born in October of 2009 and then the idea was sparked to take a family trip across the USA. Our next target was the Summer of 2014...however in the Summer of 2013 Graham was born (making him less than a year old when we start the trip) and in early 2014 I left my "day job" to work for our family business. We determined that there were too many challenges with 2014 and thus we landed on the Summer of 2015.  

Last May we purchased a 35 ft Passport Ultra Lite travel trailer. We used several short camping adventures last summer to gear up for this great adventure. All summer we hauled our trailer with a 2006 Yukon XL.  While it worked ok for hauling in the mostly flat Midwest, we were skeptical that it would hold up for a full summer of hauling including the Rocky Mts and the Appalachians among other things.  In October we sold the Yukon purchased a Dodge Ram 2500. I think it will do the job...lol.  

Here we are at the beginning of 2015 and nothing thus far has stopped us from making our plans, so we are now locked in and ready to begin the more intricate details of planning a biking/camping trip across this vast country that we live in.

This weekend we finally sat down and hammered out our first 8 days of this great adventure. Keep in mind that we have to get from Iowa to the West Coast, so the first 8 days involve no official biking.  

One of my bucket list items is seeing the Redwoods and we didn't want to take the same route to California that we would be taking as we inch our way from the West to the East over the 2 months following. Additionally, the first week would include the 4th of July which could present challenges in finding campgrounds on short notice, so we decided to book our campgrounds for the first 8 days now.

Our major stops on the way out will include:
Salt Lake City
Redwoods National Park
San Francisco

Day 9 will be the official first day of biking across the USA.