Hi everyone. Claire here. It's been a while since we went on a long bike tour, which isn't to say that we haven't been biking over the past two years.
I've gotten into road biking and found some lady buddies that I am trying to get faster with, and Travis has switched over to mountain biking exclusively, and is dabbling in these insane off-road endurance races. But I hate to say that there just hasn't been as much tour cycling lately, mostly because we have been too busy adulting.
Last summer I completed my thesis research, and graduated in December. I bought a house that we renovated over the past year, and we finally moved in in April. I got a job at UF, and I started a gardening and cooking education non-profit called Brave Harvest. Travis got promoted at his job, and he also started grad school. He's been working on fixing up our old house so we can buy it. B U S Y. We go on adventures closer to home these days, and luckily we live in North Florida so they usually turn out fun and beautiful and relatively easy to do over a weekend.
In any case-- we are gearing up to get back on the road! Except we won't be on the road! This summer's quick trip is a two week bike-packing tour, which means we really slimmed down our gear and strapped it on to our mountain bikes. We will be doing as much of the Adventure Cycling Association's 750 mile Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route as we can in 13 days. Until then, I am squeezing in some adventuring myself at a work conference in Utah. So look for some fun blog updates over the next few weeks!