After 22 rides covering 4,347 miles and 173,193 feet of climbing across 130 counties in 10 different states, I have finished riding in all the counties in Arkansas! Just under 2,500 miles of those rides was within the state of Arkansas. Yes, that’s right, I did 22 rides that had at least some small part […]

What an amazing experience this race was. I came into the race doing it mostly to have a reason to visit Iceland. I was surprised by how challenging and perfect and awesome the race itself actually was. There is a reason why more and more people keep signing up for this race with this year’s […]

Riding from Birmingham to the Chief Ladiga Trail

This is mostly just a place to document some of the options. But I would like to also state that people who don’t ride 20,000 miles on a bicycle every year don’t have a good perspective on the hierarchy of dangers in cycling. For example, riding a two-lane county road with a speed limit of […]

A tale of weather, Sir Arthur Eddington, counties, and Pike’s Peak

TLDR Adventure 1 – Thanksgiving – I attempted a 550 mile out/back-ish (tight loop) from Birmingham to Panama City Beach and back to record my own GPS data for Washington and Bay counties in Florida. The ride was going to be split into 265 miles there and 285 miles back for back-to-back Eddington 256 rides. […]

Paris-Brest-Paris 2023

TLDR – It was tough I had imagined this as being a slightly faster, slightly longer version of my normal multi-day adventures around the South. What I hadn’t counted on was how exhilarating it would actually be to do the ride and how I would overextend myself early in all the excitement. They had great […]

Archive for July, 2010

Disney! A first glimpse…

17th July 2010

This has been a summer of whirlwind travel! While we were in Minnesota, Brian was asked to attend a conference in Orlando. We couldn’t pass up a chance to visit Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We left Tuesday, drove 9.5 hours, visited Magic Kingdom on Wednesday and Friday, and “recovered” at the pool on Thursday. I, personally, don’t like crowds and wasn’t really excited to experience Disney’s busy season in 90+ degree heat and 90% humidity. But I kept reminding myself it was “the happiest place on Earth”. Armed with great tips from friends and websites (will definitely detail all my thoughts in a post! so helpful!), Beverly, the kids and I rode almost everything (including our favorites several times), learned my kids LOVE roller coasters, met 4 princesses, 3 fairies and The Fairy Godmother, saw the parade and fireworks, and had an all-around fabulous time. In spite of the crowds, I don’t think we waited more than 30 minutes for anything. Since I’m typing this on my iPhone, I’ll just add a few notes before the pics posted at the bottom…
– The kids were EXHAUSTED both nights after the fireworks and long, crowded trek back to the car (getting home at 11:15 and 11:30). Josiah was asleep standing up when we got back Wed!
– We found Tiana and Prince Naveen from the Princess & The Frog in a gazebo, and I think that’s my favorite pic of the kids 🙂 The characters are so sweet about talking to the kids and helping you get a good photo.
– Didnt get a pic, but Josiah got a kiss from Tinkerbelle. When asked how it was meeting the fairies, he said, “I loved them!”
– Analise’s one souvenir from us was Minnie princess ears (she was just posing w/ the giant Minnie doll), which she has only taken off to swim this morning.
– Josiah’s souvenir was a twirly light-up Goofy airplane, to remind him of his favorite roller coaster, the airplane that crashes through the barn (The Barnatormer). We rode it 5 or 6 times, I think!