Missy and Shane's All Around US Tour.

Getting ready to head to San Luis Obispo tomorrow for Quacky's 92nd b-day celebration. We've been having a great time at Jen & Justin's- it is a wonderful home filled with a lot of love. We have been making dinners and enjoying each others company a lot. I did a final packing test before our first "test run" which is on Monday when we get back from SLO. Everything seems to fit! I've had to reorder a different solar set-up for charging our "gear" along the way. Hope to get that dialed in next week.

Here's our first travelling podcast. It's still pretty rough, as I'm still trying to find "our sound".

It's REALLY close to being official now! We have been home-free and all packed up for a week now. I also finished work last week and last night Missy finished her last night of work! It won't feel totally official until we are on the road leaving the Bay Area but the next couple weeks still hold a lot of great adventures.

Next week we are headed to San Luis Obispo to celebrate Missy's Grandma's 92nd B-Day on St. Patricks Day. Then when we get back we are going to do a "test run" ride up the Napa Valley with ALL of our gear on the bikes to make sure it is "dialed in". Also on that ride we are hoping to do a hot air balloon ride that was given to us for our wedding (weather dependent). Then we are going to a great weekend at Wilbur Hot Springs for their Chef's Weekend. It was Missy's gift to me for my b-day and I'm really looking forward to it! I've always loved spending time at Wilbur and have enjoyed cooking in their great kitchen but to have a whole weekend there with people cooking every meal for us will be like a dream!
Then the final weekend we have a big send-off party planned at the Bus Stop Coop on the 31st and another great party for Richard's retirement/bday on Saturday April 1st. Our final departure day is the 3rd.

We had a nice few days in Berkeley at the beginning of this week. Missy attended a conference for Hospice care and we celebrated my birthday at the Bus Stop Coop with a nice dinner. It was nice to be in a place that felt like home, especially in this time of not actually having a home of our own. Missy was inspired and touched by some of the speakers (especially this one) at the conference and I think it was a nice a way to end this part of her time with Hospice. Energized and excited about it still. I saw a really great movie the first night called "The End" about five families in the L.A. Kaiser Hospice program. They were given cameras to film their experiences and it was a really interesting inside look at hospice care.

Tonight we're having a dinner party here at Jen & Justin's so we're off to do some shopping!

Well we did it! We've moved out of our home. We are now Home Free.

We did the final clean-up of the place and handed the keys over to the new owner of the house today. We've moved in with the Medaris Clan into a sweet little guest house in their backyard in Napa. It's very cozy and is a great jumping off platform for the big trip. One month from now we will be on the road. In the meantime we have a few trips planned around the area, Missy finishes work next week, and we have some time to get comfortable with the idea of having no homes, no jobs, and MUCH less stuff.

Tonight we are going to Jen & Justin's school (Stone Bridge) Mardi-Gras Celebration:

Stone Bridge School Extravaganza 2006 is a Mardi Gras celebration and fundraiser for this Waldorf Methods charter school, which suffered flood damage last winter. 6 p.m. March 4. St. John's Hall, 960 Napa St., Napa. $45 (advance); $60 (at door). (707) 252-5522. .

Should be a great party and a nice kick-off to letting everything go- getting down on the dancefloor!

On the way back from our trip up to Oregon. It has been a great week of visiting Mom, Larry, and Kristin in Bend, relaxing, enjoying good food and family time, skiing, and relaxing with Jennifer, Justin, India, and Fiona. It has been great being away for awhile, not thinking much about the next couple weeks that lay ahead. We have a solid week of packing and we move out Saturday. There's only a week of work left for me and two weeks for Missy. The next part of the adventure, the really letting go, begins now. Scary and exciting at the same time.

We made a quick trip to my Grandparents cabin at Crescent Meadows in the Cascades. It had snowed a lot in the past month and it was pretty buried. It was also really cold, down into the single digits even during the daytime. We did a little bit of snowshoeing and made sure the cabin was in good shape and then headed back to Sunriver.


Missy and I skied a few days and one day India and Fiona had their first day of skiing ever. They took lessons at Mt. Bachelor and the next day Fiona skied half day with us. It reminded me of my first days of skiing, though she picked it up about twice as fast as I did at that age. By the end she was rocketing down the hill on blue runs.


It was a great trip, though of course it felt too short. Which makes us glad that we've decided to take a whole year (at least) for our journey. With all the months of preparation and dreaming we are ready for it to begin! But first, one last push of work.

We are in Sunriver, OR right now (near Bend). Plan on doing some skiing and playing in the snow with family. Will be my last visit with my family before we head off on the big journey. It's pretty cold here right now, highs in the 20s and lows in the single digits! It's the coldest weather Missy has been in. We're hoping to get up to my grandparents cabin sometime during this week but it may be too cold for them to go up, but we'll at least stop by. That cabin holds so many wonderful memories of childhood that I'm excited to share it with Missy.

Our friends Ryan and Amy had their baby last week:

It's with tremendous joy and excitement that we introduce you to our new baby daughter, Natalie Ava Warren! Natalie was born on Saturday, February 11 at 5:50 AM, weighing 8 lbs. 2 ozs., and measuring 21 inches long. Everyone is now home, healthy and happy, and all loving our new life together. For pictures of Natalie's first days, visit our family photo site at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/warrenpics/

and here is a picture of the sweetest little thing:

The Tour of California is happening in a little over a week. Ironically we will be in Oregon for most of it!

It looks like it will be a great race. Some of the top teams and right near home. Missy and I will be riding a lot of the same route on our trip south. If you want to see a map of the routes check out the map I made at Wayfaring

There was one part on their website (besides the free bike give-away) that I thought was pretty interesting. The whole idea of bike races is a little crazy- people DRIVING all around to watch people bike and all the helicopters, support vehicles, and craziness. But if it is going to go on at least this event is doing something thoughtful- This will be the first "climate neutral" bike event in the US. Here's some quotes from their website:

An event of this size requires the use of a lot of energy in a number of areas including the necessary race support vehicles, aerial television crews, participant travel, athlete and sponsor accommodations etc. - all of which will produce greenhouse gas emissions in the process. By working with NativeEnergy's Windbuilders program, Clif Bar & Co. will fund the purchase of enough renewable energy credits to offset the estimated 518 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2 is the main contributor to global warming) produced in association with the event. These energy credits will help finance the construction of new, clean-energy wind farms on Native American land. That's providing an environmental equivalent to taking more than 1,000 cars off the roads of California for a month! As a result, the event itself will be certified Climate Neutral - having a zero net impact on global warming.

Every day along the course, race fans and visitors to the Healthy Lifestyle Festivals will be able to learn more about reducing their impact on the environment. The Clif Bar & Co. on-site recycling and composting stations will reduce the amount of waste being sent to our landfills. At the Clif Bar & Co. booth, spectators can purchase "Cool TagsTM" through a partnership with NativeEnergy to offset the amount of carbon dioxide they generate by driving to and from the event-each $2.00 Cool Tag offsets approximately 300 miles of car travel. To encourage alternate forms of transportation, there will be a bike valet on-site to encourage everyone to leave their cars at home. The Clif Bar & Co. biodiesel-powered van will be along for the entire race to raise awareness about cleaner burning alternative fuels that reduce the impact on global climate change. Vendors and others associated with the event will be encouraged to source environmentally friendly materials for their operations as well.

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Though we were married almost 5 months ago we finally got an announcement into the Napa paper. I think we were less motivated to do so since we made the front page news when we rode out there. Here's the link to the announcement

And here's a link to the original article in the Napa paper

We went to the future home of our beloved birds today. Roya, a friend and ex-coworker at PedEx will be watching our chickens while we are gone and we are so happy about the home we are leaving them at and especially with the person who will be caring for them.
They make the move next Sunday. Each day we are that much closer to all of this becoming real.

Did a ride to Benicia today. Here is the route I took.

We have an offer on the house! We are right on schedule.... it's really amazing that it is all working out so well!. If all goes well we will be moved out by my birthday (March 8th).

Trying some new mapping software to use on the ride to track us and people we meet on the way!

Here is a sample-this is the route I ride between Vallejo and Berkeley: