Project Tandem Blog
Conserve. Record. Change.
Book Dedication
We’re close to having the book ready to print (huge thanks to Mat Thorne for all his hard work on this project), and tonight we finished the dedication and wanted to share it:
Hard-working, proud, patriotic, smart, loyal and kind, Americans at every turn of the road held up to the very best of our national ideals. They bought us drinks on hot days, gave us rides when we were broken down and invited us into their RV’s, mansions, apartments, farmhouses and trailers with open arms. We had nothing to give in return, so we focused our lenses on them, hoping to capture some of the spirit of generosity, pride and heart that they had shared with us. This book is for them- we know full well we couldn’t have done it alone.
Project Tandem Opening at Asymmetrick Arts
Friday night we had our opening at Asymmetrick Arts- the first stop on Project Tandem’s national tour. 
The gallery was busy all night and Alan and I had a fantastic time talking to folks about the work and about the trip. Here’s a few photos from before and after the show (it was hard to photograph what it looked like with so many people around)!
We had a map that showed the journey…
… and even our bikes were there- all decked out just like we rode them, including the original mud splatters.
All in all, we thought the evening was a great success. We had a wonderful time and it seemed like the folks who attended were really interested in the work and the story. A huge thank you to those who came out to support us, and also to our friends and family (some of whom travelled great distances) for making this first show of Project Tandem truly special. We love you guys!
Summer Solstice and Ride for the Gulf
Saturday night was the Summer Solstice celebration in downtown Rockland, Maine.
Our friend Nicole of bloomingcardsonline.com grabbed this shot of me during the celebration. I was there handing out postcards to promote the Project Tandem opening at Asymmetrick Arts, July 2nd! But it’s more exciting than that- we’re turing July 2nd into a day of bicycles, art and the environment in downtown Rockland, with a 6 or 12 mile (your choice) fun ride to benefit the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation and the work they are doing on the Gulf Coast in the wake of the oil spill! That starts at 3pm at Bikesenjava, a local bicycle shop that has helped us out tremendously organizing this thing. Then, the Project Tandem opening starts at 5pm and goes until 8 at Asymmetrick Arts in Rockland. After that, folks can mosey over to the Waterworks restaurant to see a mountain bike film called Follow Me, sponsored by Bikesevjava, and chat with representatives from the Midcoast Maine chapter of the New England Mountain Bike Association and the planned Rockland Bike Park! It should be a fantastic day and we’re so excited!
Living Green Panel
This weekend I headed down to Connecticut to speak on a panel at my alma mater entitled, Living and Working Green: Putting Your Sustainable Convictions into Action.
The panel was lovely- made up of Jill Eisner (who works in green finance in NYC), Carolyn McGonigle Holleran (who just finished building a LEED gold-certified home), myself and David Rubin (a landscape architect with the firm OLIN). To tell the truth, I was so interested in what the other folks on the panel were talking about that I barely remember speaking myself! I guess I did and it seemed to go over well- lots of folks came up to me after to ask questions about bicycles, photography and environmental opinions around the country… I LOVE when something you talk about gets other people fired up. It’s such an incredible feeling!
Anyway, I had a chance before leaving campus to snap a quick (cell-phone) photo of my favorite building on campus. It’s called The Blaustein Humanities Center and it’s where I took most of my poetry and english classes in college.
Since I had driven all the way down to Connecticut, I took the opportunity to see my grandma outside of Boston and spent the night there. She has the most beautiful backyard and I had to share another (cell phone) photo… it doesn’t do it justice, but I like the photo just the same.
A huge thank you to Connecticut College for inviting me to be on the panel this weekend! I had a great time and I’m so proud of all the green efforts the school is making!
Good Food and Good Company
We think it was being on the road for 10 months and unable to cook for ourselves (excluding JetBoil meals, of course), that has driven both Alan and I into a sort of foodie frenzy since we returned in August. Neither of us were that big into cooking before the trip, but now we’re bordering on obsessive. Case in point:
That’s one of the Pavlovas that a whipped up last week. Essentially a meringue with whipped cream and strawberries. Then, at the beginning of last week we headed to the Adirondacks with some friends and family and spent a fair amount of the time up there cooking. And of course, eating.
Alan has become a pretty serious artisan bread baker so he supplied us all with fresh bread the whole time.
We had a fantastic time in the ADK- Alan’s family (including their dog, Betty) made it up for dinner one night and had their photo taken by an old cabin in the woods…
… by our friend and fellow photographer, Dave Wright.
Matt Bagwell, another photographer and our personal website god was also there for the duration…
and so were Alan’s brother, Tim and Matt’s brother, Nate! Here’s all the guys by Mud Lake. 
We had so much fun, but had to return much too soon. This summer is shaping up to be very, very busy, but I’m glad we got to sneak in a little trip to the Adirondacks before things get too hectic. This week? Finally printing the show!!
Acadia
We decided to take a little trip to Acadia National Park for Alan’s birthday this week. There were times on the road last year that we were envious of “car campers” who could bring all sorts of yummy food in coolers and always have clean, dry clothes… anyway, we decided it was our turn and had a blast spending a very cushy day and night camping.
Alan brought the Hasselblad camera to make some photos of the incredible landscapes in the park. I brought my 5D, but mostly just enjoyed the scenery, warm weather and salt air.
We set up our tent and pulled out the fiddleheads, chicken sausages, asparagus and wine for a gourmet grilled meal.
yum…
It was a fantastic evening, and even though it poured rain overnight, we stayed warm and dry in our tent, did a little more exploring the next day and reluctantly drove back home. I think we both miss camping so much more than we thought we would. Hopefully we’ll get to do more soon!
OBSCURA
We’re back! Due to some weirdness with Wordpress updates the blog has been down for a little while- we’re sorry! Anyway, the ever-fantastic web genius, Matt Bagwell has helped us to get it back up and running. Thank you Matt!
In other news, we wanted to give a shout-out to our friends at OBSCURA who had a very successful website launch/gallery opening/book signing at Asymmetrick Arts in Rockland, Maine on May 7th. The show will be up until May 19th- so you still have time to catch it! Be sure to check out their website as well, www.obscuraweb.org. They are a great group of artists making beautiful work and doing good at the some time- what’s not to love about that?
Enrique Visits!
Last night it was our pleasure to host a touring cyclist named Enrique!
Enrique lives in Barcelona, Spain and is currently touring from NYC, up the coast to Quebec City (where he will study French for a couple months), then to Montreal and down the Hudson back to NYC! Sounds like a great tour and, as he joked, he has the best luck with weather- spring has come early to the coast and he’s soaking up the sunshine and perfect bicycling temperatures.
We had a great time hanging out and hearing about his international tours over homemade pizza last night and this morning he took off up Route 1 towards Acadia.
Having Enrique was our first time hosting from Warm Showers (the online cycle touring network) since we’ve been back from our trip and it made us so eager to get back on the road! Another project? Maybe…
Spring
The leaves are starting to come out and we’re in talks with galleries around the country to get Project Tandem shown. Who could ask for anything more?