Jen and I are the Grumbys. Well, not legally, but we adopted the unusual surname years ago because it’s easier than saying Suchanek. You see, I spent a lot of my youth watching Gilligan’s Island time and time again, and probably know every line in every episode. The Skipper’s name is revealed only once in the show, in the first episode. That name was Jonas Grumby, which is a great name for a fictional portly sea captain if you ask me.  My brain is filled with this kind of useless information, which might explain why I fared so poorly in chemistry and microbiology. 

Anyway, the reason we are the Grumbys is that my last name is incredibly difficult to pronounce. When we would go to a restaurant, I would sit and wait for the inevitable “Um, Such-a, hmm, er, Shoonakie, Suckaneck, um,....”, and so on. Instead we use Grumby as our restaurant name, so they can yell “GRUMBY PARTY OF TWO!”  And when we got married in Alaska, the wedding was performed by my friend Scott Beanblossom (now THAT is an excellent last name, but it’s taken), and he pronounced us The Grumbys at the end. And that’s official enough for us. 

Now, back to the original reason for this entry. After a few years of careful planning, saving our nickels and divesting ourselves of unneeded possessions, Mrs. Grumby (Jen) and I plan to exit the slave wage carousel next May and live as bicycle nomads for awhile. Living on a bike sounds like a great adventure, and many are doing it, but neither of us has toured for more than 3-4 days at a time. We have done some short tours near Portland but figured  we better get out there for a longer trip before we dive in with both wheels. So that’s what this trip was mostly about, although it was a pretty amazing vacation. 

 I’m still figuring out the bike trip journal thing. I have poured over hundreds of CGOB journals, but this is my first shot at my own, and for several reasons I’m extremely happy that CycleBlaze exists. Thanks Jeff! If you have any feedback for me on better trip blogging, please let me know. Thanks for reading! I am excited to be part of this community  

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