We also pray to all that is holy that our spandex and jersey have managed to dry fully overnight. Putting on wet spandex, over cold (sometimes mentholated) butt-butter is second only to vicious plaque scrapings in my list of the most dreadful physical sensations I've ever experienced.

It's been a little while since we've updated, and I wanted to give a little update on progress.

Progress towards what? Well, it occurs to me that we haven't even really touched on why this blog exists. Basically, Melissa and I are planning a trip this summer. We're going to ride our bikes from our home in Bloomington, Indiana, out to the Pacific coast. We're both filmmakers, and we'll be documenting the trip as we go. But we're not just making a long bike trip. We're going to be visiting sites as we go that have to do with one of our many interests: sustainability, energy, transportation, local and organic farming, and governance. There will be other topics that we'll be hitting on too, but those are the main ones. It's part adventure, part documentary, and promises to be both a huge challenge and a lot of fun.

We've mapped out the basic route of the trip now. Starting in Bloomington, we'll head northeast towards Chicago, then to Madison. From Madison we'll head nearly due West through southern Minnesota and South Dakota. We're going to pass through the Black Hills, then travel Northwest as we cross Wyoming. We'll enter the mountains and climb into Yellowstone, then descend into Idaho. As we cross Southern Idaho, we'll gradually turn Northwest again and head towards Portland.

Portland will be a big target for us, and also a turning point. From there we will head South, first through the region between the mountains and the coast, and then turning towards the California Coast as we exit Oregon. We'll hit the coast near the Redwoods, then head south, hugging the coastline for a bit before we turn inland to go for Sacramento. After a brief stay there, we'll make our final push into San Francisco and wrap up principal shooting and the biking portion of the trip.

In San Fran, we'll give up the biking portion of the trip and take an Amtrak train up to Portland again. We'll be editing as we go, but I'm hopeful we can spend a week or so in Portland getting a rough cut together before I take the train again back East. There's an Amtrak line that goes North through Glacier and then comes down towards Chicago. I can take it almost all the way back home. My final leg will probably be on bike again, riding down from Indy to Bloomington to round off the journey.

I'm excited about the trip, about the people we'll meet and the places we'll get to see. There are so many wonderful opportunities here. Getting the chance to ride across the US to the Pacific coast is exciting enough. I've been blessed to travel many places in my life, but I've never seen the Pacific. That will be a thrill for me. Seeing Yellowstone from the back of our bikes will be wonderful, a scenic journey that is sure to impress and inspire. The Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains should be wonderful as well.

There's also the prospect of the kind of physical challenge that the trip represents. Riding 50-80 miles a day for 10 weeks straight will be the biggest test of endurance, mental and physical that I've ever been part of. If my body doesn't break down, I'm likely to come out of this in the best shape of my life, and that by a long shot. It's simultaneously daunting and exhilarating.

The challenge that this represents for the relationship between Melissa and myself is also intriguing to me. We've been dating for about a month and a half now, and known each other for about 6 months. We certainly get along wonderfully and see eye-to-eye on an uncanny number of things, but 10 weeks is a long time to spend with anyone day in and day out, practically every hour of the day. We'll be with each other somewhere between 10-16 waking hours a day, depending on if we ride close together or not. That's enough time to test any relationship. We've already spoken about this many times, and I think we're both anticipating some ups and downs, but it also promises to be an experience that we can learn and grow from.

But even more than the beauty of the trip and the physical, mental and emotional challenges, I look forward to telling a story. This is going to be a story about transportation, about energy, about sustainability. But it is also going to be a story about what's going on in the Midwest, and in the Mountains, and along the Pacific Coast. How people are living, and what some of the threats to that livelihood are. I look forward to learning as much as I look forward to telling that story. It's also going to be a story about the challenges Melissa and I face, and about the real beauty of America. We're blessed to live in a country with some of the most amazing wilderness areas in the world, and Melissa and I will get to witness and share some of that beauty with the people who follow along with us. That's going to be a real treat for me.

I'm excited about this opportunity. I'm thrilled to be planning it with someone who I love and admire, and I look forward to sharing our experience with those who we are able to meet along the way.