As you might know, we’ve been excited about our style of departure for a few months now. In May, we booked train tickets from Atlanta, Georgia, to Portland, Maine, to begin our grand adventure. We researched this decision carefully, and found it to be the most cost-effective and easiest option for us to get to Maine with our bicycles. When we made the reservation, we asked what their policy was for bicycles, specifically wanting to be sure we could bring ours with us on the train. The representative told us we would be required to box them up (as we would have to do on an airplane as well), but that the fee was only $5 to bring them along. We were set.

Or so we thought. We called Amtrak back last week, just to see if we could talk someone into letting us roll our bikes on the train instead of having to box them up. As Dave talked to the representative on the phone, we found out a piece of critical information. Turns out, when we would be changing trains in NYC and Boston, our bikes would be taking a different route than us. A route that would bring them to their final destination in Boston, although our final destination would be in Portland. Major detail? We thought so! On the phone, Dave specifically said, “You know, when I book a form of transportation, I don’t usually think to ask if my baggage is going to arrive in the same location as me. Why didn’t someone TELL US?”

It was time to make a new plan, as obviously, we’re going to need our bicycles when we arrive. We looked at train schedules… the people at Amtrak told us we could actually take our bikes from Boston to Portland if we roll them on the train. But we can’t roll them on the train in Atlanta. So, we would have to box them up and put them on the train in Atlanta. Then, in Boston, our bikes would actually arrive in a different station than us. We’d have to change stations, pick up the bikes, unbox them, put them back together, then go to another third station and actually get on a train to Portland… all in about three hours’ time. Yeah right. Not going to work.

We had to make a decision if the train was even going to work for us at all at this point. We’ve really thought the train sounded like a cool way to start our journey, so we didn’t want to throw it out completely. We checked planes and rental cars, which were all significantly more expensive. So we talked to John, Dave’s brother that lives in New Hampshire (one of the first stops on our cycling route, of course). He suggested that we just ship our bikes to him in Dover, get off the train there, and let them take us to Portland the next day.

So that’s what we’ve done. We disassembled our bikes and boxed them up here in Nashville, and took them to FedEx for ground shipment to New Hampshire. Meanwhile, we’re sticking with our scheduled itinerary on the train, just getting off a few stops early in Dover. We’ll take a day to put our bikes together at John’s house, then start riding in Maine the next day.

To box up your bicycle, you have to break it down a little bit. Here's Dave's right before it went in the box.

Here it is in the box!

Ready to go to the FedEx store!

A word to the wise—when booking train tickets, be sure to ask if your baggage is going to make it. We’re just grateful we actually called to check in last week, or we would have arrived in Portland next week with our bicycles stranded in Boston! What a disaster that could have been!

By the way, you probably noticed it’s been a while since we posted… and it’s because the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of preparations. We’ve also been homeless, so we are in a type of roaming transitional stage.. In case you’re wondering “where we’ve been” so far, here’s a general update.

On July 27 we moved out of our home in Auburn. We spent our last few weeks in town tying up loose ends, selling stuff on Craig’s List and cleaning our house. When we moved out, we drove down to Perdido Bay for a vacation with the Garth family. We spent nine days there, enjoying life with no schedule and lots of tubing, water skiing, eating, and sunburn (for Bethany). From Perdido we drove to Abbeville to spend a long weekend with Bethany’s parents. We were so grateful to have this wonderful time with our families. We’ll be doing a longer visit with Bethany’s family when we are home for Christmas.

Tough life... spending a week at the bay before heading out for a couple of years!

From Abbeville we went to Nashville to finish packing up, then we came to Memphis, where we are now for the wedding of Cassie Gorman, a close friend of Bethany’s from college. On Sunday we’ll head back to Nashville, then on Monday we’re headed to the train station in Atlanta!

We feel like we are finally starting to actually  get excited about leaving. We feel like we’ve been “leaving” for months now! When we were in Abbeville, people would ask, “I thought y’all were gone… have you been anywhere yet?” All we could say was, “We are leaving in a week!” We keep telling people when we are going to leave… we want to just LEAVE already! We believe that God has prepared us for this next season, and we’re ready for it to officially begin!

We have been working on detail after detail to make sure everything is "situated" before our departure. It has required a lot of time, phone calls and paperwork, but it's worth it!

Check back next week for our official departure…