Our Cherry Picking Plan

June 5, 2019

Cherry picking? What the heck! Are we heading off to pick fruit this summer? Well, no. But we are setting off on another adventure, this time a little different from the last ones. For years we have read about other bike journeys in Canada and the States and have dreamed of riding such storied trails as Myra Canyon in the Kettle Valley, the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, the C&O Trail in Pennsylvania, the Katy Trail in Missouri and many many others.

However, we have absolutely no desire to ride across either Canada or the States. So, how would we get to these (and many other) epic rides? That’s where our newest addition to our transportation family comes in. When we returned from Cuba, one of our first stops was to the local car dealer where we purchased a shiny new Dodge Caravan (ooooo! Ahhhhhh! – I can just hear your excitement! A mini-van!!!).

Ok, well, exciting maybe not, but this purchase had been thought through very carefully before we left for Mexico and Cuba. The big plan? First, we outfitted the van, which we have named Vincent Van-Go, to accommodate us sleeping in it, adding a bike rack to the back. Now we are almost ready to launch ourselves off to see what we can see in North America both by van and by bike. Jim has spent much time searching for interesting bike rides across Canada and the northern States and our intention is to ride as many of them as we can. We have some target places we have to be (visiting family in Ontario in August, attending a football game in Michigan in September, enjoying Thanksgiving once again in Texas) and these have helped us to formulate a plan that will both satisfy our desire to explore North American and also cycle in many of the beautiful places we have read about.

Now, of course, this is a bike touring site, and we intend to write here only about the bike portions of the trip. Most rides will be 1-5 days in length with the occasional 1 day ride here and there. In between, as we travel in the van, you are welcome to check out our blog thepricesofwandering.com. Here I will talk about other aspects of our trip that are not bike specific. As well, you can read about how we converted the van to allow us to camp in it. We hope that both parts of this tour will be exciting and fun both for us and for you to read about. Our target date for leaving is the beginning of July when we head up to the Kelowna area to check out the Kettle Valley rail trail. Hope you come along for the ride!

Here's a rough outline of our itinerary in three sections. The first part will take us to the end of August

Then from there we head down to Texas for American Thanksgiving in November

And finally, after meandering around the American southwest until the weather improves up north, we will head home

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Rachael AndersonI agree with you about riding across the US and Canada. Sounds like a good plan. I look forward to seeing how it goes and about the different places you are going.
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5 years ago

Sue PriceThanks, Rachel. We are itching to get back out on the road. Our first biking stop will be up in Banff/Jasper and I plan on rereading that portion of your Swanson for the Jetta tour for ideas! As for the rest, there are so many choices out there, we could do this for a long time I'm sure!
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5 years ago