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Every year our departure date seems to come earlier and earlier...must be all the last minute hustle and bustle to get ready to get on the road which makes the time go by so fast.  We know when the pollen stops blowing around in Alabama and the nice spring days start to come in large numbers, it's time to pull up stakes and head up north where it's still snowing.  Somehow, we never get everything done we want to finish before leaving...geeze, I wish I had time to mow the yard just one more time!  But no matter, when we pull out everything we didn't get done will still be there waiting for us in November...yep, retirement's tough.

One of the final things on our list to do before departing was to speak at my Grandsons' elementary classes at Emerald Mountain Christian School in Wetumpka Alabama...Michael's 3rd grade class (upper left) and Noah's kindergarten class (lower left).  They will be following the website as we cross the country and completing projects in social studies and English.  They will do reports on areas that we ride through and if things work out as planned, they will hone their letter writing skills by corresponding to the riders while they are on the road.  Map reading will be another area of study as the students watch our progress across the nation...hopefully the riders will have already studied the map reading part or they may not make it to Alabama. 

Karen, Barb, and I got decked out in our cycling attire and spent time telling them about what we do on the road and showing them our road bikes.  Afterwards, Karen was a big hit when she let the class shift the gears and see how fast they could make the computer register by spinning the wheels by hand.  The kids were excited to learn about how fast and how far we ride and are anxious to hear from us as we pedal through the areas they are studying.  On May 17th, we'll ride right past their school on our way from Prattville AL to Columbus GA and they plan to be out cheering us on and meeting the riders if they will stop for a minute...there may be cookies involved so I'm sure the riders will stop.

So before we get on the road, we want to thank the classes for their interest in our endeavor and for their support along the way.  We'll be looking forward to hearing from them and we'll do our best to keep them advised about where we are and what we are doing.  Someday, some of them may want to ride their bikes across the country...one little girl said she couldn't right now because her mom wouldn't let her ride farther than the driveway...but maybe someday. 

So now you'll know that there will be others following us as we pedal across the country.  Glad you stopped by and hope you'll enjoy following us too.  Pray for our safe travel and hopefully we'll be able to report sunshine and tailwinds the entire way...but what fun would that be?  Our ride will start on the 23rd of April...tune in and see what we are up to.  M

PS:  Already a "DUH of the Day."  As I said, the class seemed to be really impressed with us riding across the country and when I was trying to put it into a perspective they would understand, I told them it was like riding their bicycles from their house to Birmingham Alabama 280 times!  Yep, they were impressed...but they probably weren't impressed with my math skills as it's 100 miles to Birmingham.  We ride 2900 miles in 27 days...yes that's impressive enough, but when I was doing the math quickly in my head I only divided by 10 instead of 100...oops.  No wonder they were impressed!  Sorry kids, it's only like riding your bike to Birmingham 29 times...still a "fer" piece from the end of your driveway.