Who Are We?

Here's the two minute drill...

Two friends; one crazy adventure: to raise money for the Search Dog Foundation, SDF (a non-profit that raises and trains search and rescue dogs). How to get attention for this cause? By biking from Maine to Key West in less than two months. Chance of success? Maybe. Crazy? Definitely. Awesome adventure? Undoubtedly.

Or if you're feeling courageous, the full lecture...

Team e2 is the brainchild of a graduating high school senior (Evan Smith) and a graduating master's student (Evan Patronik). Evan Smith and I met about 4 years ago through his older brother and have become close friends, mostly through our similar personalities and tastes of outdoor activities (such as swimming in the Atlantic during early February of last year). On a whim one night, we decided to undertake a "crazy adventure" during the summer of 2008: a bike trip logging nearly 3,000 miles from the tip of Maine to the bottom of the Florida Keys. On its own, this journey would be fulfilling enough for the both of us but we had hoped to gain something more. This led us to idea of using our trip to raise money for a more than worthy cause. We have involved ourselves in a fundraising effort with the "Search Dog Foundation" (SDF), a not-for-profit non-governmental organization based out of California. Their mission is to produce the most highly trained FEMA Advanced Certified Canine Disaster Search Teams in the country. These teams are trained to search for live victims of natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The teams are provided at no cost to fire departments and other emergency service agencies throughout the country and are essential in the post-disaster rescue effort. We are spreading the word of our charity ride to individuals we meet on the ride (which is why you may be at this website) and with companies around the country. Feel free to donate to the cause using the link provided on this page, as well as check out our pictures and blog in order to follow us on this amazing and crazy adventure!!!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Day 34: Aug 14 - Vero Beach is Vero Hot and Vero Full of Mosquitoes




Trying to get a place to stay after today's ride was quite a debacle. There were plenty of fire stations in the area where we were headed (originally Floridana Beach, now Vero Beach), just no one that wanted to take us in. Finally, I was able to get in touch with a nice woman (or man...gosh, at this point I can't remember) who hooked us up with the Vero Beach Fire Rescue Station 5 personnel. They had just been transplanted to a brand new station two years before because of a hurricane that came through and tore up the old place. The woman (or man)...the "individual", on the phone assured me that if a hurricane came through, that was the place to be because it was built tighter than a _____'s _____. Can't exactly display that kind of language here, but that's what they said! So we headed for Vero Veach, 74 miles down the coast, into the wind (as usual) on an extraordinarily hot day. Now, you might think "but at least it's windy, so the heat isn't as unbearable, right?" Wrong. It could be gale force coming at you, but you're still pedaling all strength, all the time. Sure, you may evaporate a drop of sweat or there, but your pores are working overtime pumping perspiration out of every possible spot. Wind + Heat + Heading South = Dead

Well, not exactly dead...but close.

So looking back on today's pictures, we had some good (and bad) events. Let's run through them...
Unique and astounding architecture: some of these homes along the sound (actually the Indian River Aquatic Reserve...which would lead me to believe it was a river...but I'm saying sound) were just incredible...the variety of architectural designs gave a great reason to slow down and just see how different each house could be from the one next to it, let alone the next 100 down the street.
Dolphins: thank god for Esmith's eagle eyes, or these guys would have gone undiscovered! We rode by a set of docks and lo and behold, a pod of dolphins! They stuck around for a little while, long enough for me to get my D80 out of my front pack and snap a few shots of some dorsal fins slicing through the calm surface of the sound. We were tempted to try to get on one of the docks and see just how friendly the dolphins would be, but arrest for trespassing was not on our list of objectives for the day.
Bike malfunction #1: remember that guy Sean that we met in North Carolina? Well, one of the stories he told us was about the pelotons (groups of bicyclists...think the Tour de France and all those cyclists) that form on the roads in Florida. Apparently, there aren't a lot of great roads to ride on, so most cyclists all tend to ride together on the same roads, forming these massive groups. Not only is it fun to join in one of these rides with your fellow enthusiasts, you can save a lot of energy through drafting. This is especially helpful when you've got 60 pounds of gear to carry, and these guys will go out of their way to suck you into the amoebic mass and do your work for crazy people like us. Well, Esmith and I had been excited about finding one of these pelotons since Sean told us about them, and today was going to be the day. The weather was getting nice and hot and were about to head out onto the coastal island with lots of traffic where a big group would be good to fight the cars and the wind. Well, we're about to head out onto the land bridge and a bolt on Esmith's rack shears right off, dropping his rack onto his tire, completely incapacitating his ride. I stop, walk the bike back, and we start to investigate the severity of the failure. And just as we surmise that some serious fixing is in order, what do we look up to see passing us but a peloton of about 40 guys on bikes. Oh, the cruel irony of life!!! Luckily, just a mile back was a bike shop (a very helpful running lady was nice enough to stop by and let us know), so we drug our bikes back to the shop and let them take care of the ordeal. 45 minutes and 10 degress Fahrenheit later, we're back on the road.
Ron Jon's Surf Shop: the plan was to stop at Ron Jon's surf shop, the original huge shop, just to see what they had. This did not work out as planned. I got there first by a few minutes, and pulled over by a bench to wait for Esmith...who, absorbed in the biking as we tended to become, shoots right past the shop, not noticing me waving frantically on the corner. I hop on my bike to try to catch up with him...but then, he's doing the same thinking that I'M ahead of him, so it's a no win situation. I don't know if I've mentioned this by this point, but Esmith's phone has been rendered useless without an electrical outlet by the downpour we rode through in northern Florida. So I just kept riding until Esmith called my cellphone from a table at McDonald's (boooo! booooo on McD's!!). Unknowingly, I'd already passed him since he had stopped, so the next 40 minutes was spent with us ricocheting back and forth, up and down the street until we finally met. Our first time getting separated on the trip...and so close to the end!!
Our first legitimately caused flat: short and sweet, my tire exploded because finally an object of worthy inflation-deadliness was able to penetrate and cause a flat.
Tortoise: I was able to snag a tortoise just as it tried to escape into the underbrush beside the sidewalk. And by "just able", I mean, stopped my bike, got my camera out, took some pictures, and got in its way as it slowly made its escape. Then more pictures and some angry hissing from the infuriated reptile.
High five plants: probably one of my top 20 coolest parts of the trip was this simple plant. Almost a weed, even; it was everywhere. But gosh darn were its big leaves great for high-fiving (see picture above). Esmith demonstrates this technique perfectly (and I'd like to mention that I stupidly took that picture while turned around while riding) I'm glad it didn't have some sort of toxin or allergic reaction causing sap, because I think we high-fived 643 of these things.


After a stellar shopping trip to CVS (not exactly), we arrived at the Fire Rescue Station. Now, THIS place had some characters. I was a little unsure how it was going to be hanging out there for the night, because they were a little ambivalent to our presence at first (just going about their daily routine), but this soon changed to hilarity and absurd conversations. The whole crew was awesome. From left to right in the picture, I think it goes like this: Emit, Esmith, Pete up top, Ray down below, Me, Lt. Wayne (or as most call him "Big Sexy" or "The Love Machine"), and Jay. It was like college hanging out with these guys. Jay, Esmith, and I were up for quite awhile exchanging stories and jokes, and just musing about life in general. I think his wife was on her last year of law school, so I hope she's coming along well, Jay!! This crew of guys were great and I'm really glad we were able to stop by and spend the evening with them. Hope you're all doing well, fellas.

Day 33: Aug 13 - So close to the space shuttle and no blast offs!! WHY GOD, WHY!?!?!




Alright, I'll start this off with an aside that it's been quite some time since I wrote last and also since Esmith and I ended the trip...so a lot of this is fuzzy as I didn't take as great of notes toward the end of the trip. But I'll do my best and if I leave anyone out or forget a name, you can e-mail me a complaint. I don't foresee this though, so off we go!

The day started as most do: early, drowsy, but ready to bike. Mary took us out for breakfast out a local eating establishment (good old hometown breakfast place, you know the type). Plenty of greasy consumables were eaten, paying no heed to the calories or fat because really, our metabolisms are roaring infernos at this point. We say our goodbyes to our one-day-family and strike out on that lonely road again.

Today's destination was originally supposed to be Mims, but because we had torn asphalt the last few days, we could bump ourselves up a little bit. We ended up deciding on Titusville, a city about 62 miles just down yonder road (oh, wait, it's Route 1 AGAIN!). I was busy trying to line up our sleeping arrangements for most today's ride (if you think talking on a cell phone distracts you while driving, try it while riding a bike), so not much occurred on today's ride that I noticed...except for the amazing Pet Vet Cruiser. It's a bus that drives around, spaying and neutering every poor animal in sight. Actually it's a lot less rampant and out of control than that and serves a great purpose in lowering the animal population...but it was a little humorous seeing a bus that cruises the streets, chopping off and removing the crucial bits and pieces of male and female (respectively) pets everywhere. Amazing that the highlight of the day was a genital removing vehicle.

We were able to stop at a library and negotiate our residence for that evening through Lieutenant Rodney of the Titusville Fire Station. He assured us that they would have a place for us so our destination was secured for the day. It ended up being a pretty short day so we had time to get lost looking for the grocery store which was right down the street from the fire station for about an hour. Great dinner of Caesar salad and chicken I think. Then talking to Bobby (one of the fire fighters) about motorcycles (he had pretty cool modified one) and Olympics. Probably one of the more interesting parts of the evening, as well as one of the most disappointing, was the fact that we were literally just under 10 miles from Cape Canaveral. That's right, where they shoot off the space shuttle!! The guys said that they've seen so many by this point that they aren't even that amazing anymore (cha right!), and seeing one during the day is great, but at night they're even better. You'd swear it was daylight the amount of energy that vehicle puts out in the form of light. So that was the incredible part. Unfortunately, we were not around for any launches. That's the disappointing part. But they did have a gnarly old fire truck, the FIRST one the city ever owned, restored to its original condition. They use it in parades and events. And being the big shot, highfalutin big shots we were, they let us play in it. Well, take pictures with it, but same thing. You should have seen how bells and whistles this baby had!

After the Olympics and some mindnumbing episodes of whatnot on the TV, we hit the hay in preparation for the ensuing day of biking. Thanks for the great hospitality, Titusville FPD, namely Allan, Bobby, and Rodney.