The Why

This blog is about my bike ride from North Carolina to California. I'm leaving August 9th and am aiming to arrive in San Francisco by October 7th or so. Will Hooker, a landscape architect and horticulture professor at North Carolina State University, has planted hundreds of thousands (millions?) of seeds in his life. This trip is one of them. Of his repertoire of travel stories, those from his cross-country bike ride have stuck with me since I listened to them in his permaculture class in 2003. It grew and grew as I began deciding what to do with myself after graduate school, and thus, here we are. My sister, Sarah (b. Albemarle, NC, 1983), a third year law student at UNC Chapel Hill, is joining me for the first week through our home state, where my mother Karen (b. Albemarle, NC, 1952) is providing shuttle services. David Moses (b. Boone, NC, 1983), an old and newly rediscovered kindred spirit from NC State, is joining me for the Appalachian Mountains, a region for which we share a deep affection. My steadfast traveling companion and cousin Kathleen Cook (b. Albemarle, 1982), is signed up for the Nashville through Missouri leg. Her parents, Elizabeth (b. Greensboro, NC, 1954) and Mark (b. Albemarle, NC, 1948) Cook will be providing car support and some bike-riding companionship through Missouri and Kansas. Colorado I'll be either on my own or with friends I find along the way. In Utah, my father Tony (b. Wilson, NC, 1953) is coming out to do some hiking and car supporting. My aunt Elizabeth is back out for the loneliest highway in America through Nevada, and from Lake Tahoe to San Francisco, it's again my trusty steel steed and me. I'll be taking pictures and typing in some stories and observations along the way. Let me know what you think. And if you have a grandmother who lives along my route that makes a famous meatloaf (or even squash casserole), send me her address!