A quick introduction to us:

We are Roy and Laurie Dando and have been retired since 2018 and have been traveling around the country in our travel trailer since then.  In 2023 we decided to leave North America for the first time and flew to New Zealand for two months.  We enjoyed being in a warmer climate during the winter so much that we have decided to spend this winter in Costa Rica.  We have spent a half an hour per day for the past 8 months trying to become literate in Spanish so we might fit in with the locals a bit better once we arrive in Costa Rica.

As Laurie opted to retire early and I was a teacher with summers off, we spent two good months each year practicing for retirement by taking long trips around our wonderful country either on our tandem bicycle or on hiking trails.  We have hiked the 572 mile Finger Lakes Trail twice. Once as a section hike on weekends and vacations and once as a 36 day thru hike.  We have also finished hiking the 2200 mile long Appalachian Trail as well as the Superior Trail in Minnesota and the Ozark Trail in Missouri. As we travel we love to use our All Trails App on our phones to help find nice hikes wherever we are.

Tandem biking with our BOB trailer was one of our favorite things to do during our summer vacations.  We started in 2001 riding around all 11 of the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York.  Looking for more circuitous routes we opted to cycle around the 5 Great Lakes.  With no more "local" lakes to ride around we started some more linear trips.  Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway turned our 2010 summer into a very hilly time.  The Pacific Coast through Washington, Oregon and California made the summer of 2008 a memorable one.  2013 saw us ferrying up the inside passage to Alaska to cycle the Alaska Highway from Haynes, AK to Boise, ID, a bit under 2000 miles of gorgeous cycling. One of our favorite bike trips was circumnavigating the island province of Newfoundland.  While checking out L'Anse Aux Meadows where the Vikings landed some 800 years ago, we opted to take a two week side trip from Blanc Sablon to Cartwright in the province of Labrador.  A gravel road had just been built there for our pleasure but the 21 flat tires made us wonder why we opted for gravel?

We have not retired our tandem bike just yet but have been recently spending a bit more time checking out the waterways our country has to offer.  Wherever we find ourselves we scan the maps for rivers, ponds or lakes to float our kayaks in.  Some of the highlights of our kayak adventures include some floating on the Mississippi River, the Potomac River, the Rio Grande, the Colorado River and many other rivers and streams across our great country.

There has been much construction of really cool rail trails for riding our gravel bikes on.  It seems that no matter where end up with our camper, with our bikes, kayaks and motorcycle (for transportation back from a linear outing) we find a nice rail trail to cycle on.

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