Well, it's time to dust off the dormant blog! Only days after the cycling journey concluded last summer, I realized that I wasn't ready for the trip to conclude. I was home for no more than a few days when I realized: I wanted to keep going east. This quickly changed into telling myself, "you should have gone eastward; all the way to the Atlantic coast." This wasn't necessarily shame speaking to me. In hindsight, I felt this way for more reasons than one, but the biggest reason being that I was slightly jealous of following the rest of Garrett's journey to Bar Harbor, Maine! However, it was August and a lot of change occurred when I got back to Iowa, including starting work in a new school district.
Starting in a new school district is easier said than done, however in short time I realized that I really lucked out on where I landed for work. A few weeks after starting work, my maternal grandmother passed away peacefully surrounded by my parents, brothers, and church priest. I'm grateful that I got to spend some time with my grandmother in August prior to going back to Iowa. Her health had diminished earlier in August, and when I saw her for the final time in person... part of me felt in my heart that that was the last time. Colleagues from the AEA and especially at my new school district were supportive of me during this time of change. I also became a lot more familiar with a group of people that play ultimate frisbee in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area. I have a great deal of gratitude for them and work folks; between a good network of people at and away from work, I managed to transition into the latter part of 2017. I continued to ride the bike around the Cedar Rapids area after the trip. September was especially dry, which made for great riding. I got out every Saturday and Sunday in September! In October, I had begun to plot plans for the next trip; planning the strategy for scratching the itch that could not be scratched until June of 2018. Most of this was doing homework on purchasing a new bike and budgeting for being on the road for several weeks this summer. Winter was just starting to settle in, and summer was months away.
Fast forward to March 22, 2018 and there's snow in the forecast for this weekend. Funny, I thought it was officially Spring. Surely a reminder of what Spring may hold for the Mid-West. By early March, I had plotted my route from Newport, OR to Dixon, IL. I've yet to determine the exact route from Dixon to Atlantic City, but I do know for a fact that I'll go by way of Pittsburgh. I managed to get about a dozen rides in so far this winter, which isn't far off from this time last year. I've been training for a marathon, so cycling has taken a back seat to running since November. Once the marathon has passed, I'll switch back to cycling. I should have enough time to train and be ready for this trip before the second week of June. In the meantime, I've got more planning to: I'm hoping to tie a charitable cause to this ride, where 100% of the donations generated will go directly to a charitable cause. I have a few causes in mind but have yet to commit to one. Dusting of the blog is completed. More to come!
