Before we’ve been gone too long, I just wanted to put out a widespread “thank you” to our friends and family at home who helped us get out on the road. With a lead time of three weeks, we were admittedly pressed for time as we pulled our trip together. Beyond that, injury and the general unknowns […]
By the time we made it to our room last night, we were spent completely beyond what would be healthy for a cycling regimen that needs to be repeated nearly every day. My face felt hot and my back hurt to bend at all. We napped pretty well all afternoon, got up for a short […]
Butterflies. As we packed up our bikes and pointed them north, the knowledge that we needed to ride out of the metropolis of Athens was making me really nervous. The city boasts some intense traffic and the roads aren’t great either. Also, did I mention that neither of us have attempted a real ride on […]
We worked away the evening, but as dusk fell, we hopped back on the train. We wanted to see Athens in action at night. I suppose I had pictured a deathly quiet evening stroll a la Venice, but what we found was that the city wakes up late, even on a Tuesday night! We meandered around the […]
Our bike building session last night was an uneventful affair, right up until the moment I realized that we were missing our bike lock chain. We searched through all our luggage only to realize that neither of us remembered packing it. A quick chat with my dad at home verified. The chain never got on […]
Three AM, and I was wide, wide awake. I am sure glad to be working through this jet lag in a lovely Athens apartment instead of from the open road. Ben, on the other hand, slept beautifully, but woke up with the sun. By 7, we were off to try another card in the ATM […]
For anyone who had the misfortune of seeing me in real life this week, I was a bit of a disaster heading into departure. We were up nearly all night before we left, cramming things into panniers and then into bigger bags and boxes for the plane. The bike boxes were well over regulation size, […]
With three days to departure, I feel like I spend a good block of my days explaining our touring plans. Here’s a list of the most frequently asked (and mostly unanswered) questions about our tour: Where are you going? To Athens. From there, we’ll need to get to Finland by mid-August for our flight home. […]
If our first bike tour taught us anything, it was that worrying too much about making plans was taking more mental energy than it was saving. This time, we might be in for a different sort of problem. We haven’t made really any plans at all! So far, we are planning to fly into Athens […]
After what was a rather miserable winter, April brought a storm of welcome news. Earlier last month, I was admitted to a doctoral program in my field where I will begin studying and teaching in the fall. With such a major alteration in career plans and living arrangements suddenly just around the corner, another summer adventure […]
Morning came quickly, and a soft pink light filtering through our tent woke us up. Knowing that it was still too cold outside to comfortably get a start on our day’s ride, we unzipped the east facing door of our tent and watched the sun rise from the warmth of our sleeping bags. I wish […]
For the last month I’d been admiring billboards around town about the buffalo roundup that takes place every fall at Antelope island, so without really thinking about it, we booked a campsite and planned to bike tour to the island for the weekend. I suppose I hadn’t really considered the weather implications of taking a tour during […]