Friday, September 3, 2010

ride for HOPE Final Video

Well hello there. It's been quite some time since we've put up a blog entry - we've had a bit of a cliffhanger going for almost a year now, in fact. Some of you may be wondering, did we in fact make it home? Was our surprise successful? Though the vast majority of you likely have forgotten all about us and our adventure already. It's crazy to think that it's been nearly a year since we arrived home after riding from Canada to Argentina.


But, we did in fact do it. We rode home from the Calgary airport in two days, sharing a wonderful meal and night with a stranger who offered us a place to stay halfway home. The next day we rode the rolling hills from Sundre to Rocky, excited and nervous. It was quite the shock to everybody when they arrived home from work and found us sitting in the backyard waiting. It was good.


So what's happened since then? Well, we held a fundraising presentation and silent auction in Rocky, and with everybody's amazing support, we were able to hit our $50,000 goal. Thank you. For every one of you who donated a dollar, who told a friend, or forwarded on our blog - thank you. You made this fundraising an incredible success. And since then, Jeff and I had to face the 'real-world' and the 'real-debt' that we were in personally after this trip, and so we've both been working, saving our pennies.


But, we haven't forgotten about our trip at all, and in fact we've been busying putting together a few presentations. Our most recent endeavour was building a short video of our trip - Canada to Argentina, in 12 minutes. Now we've told a lot of stories on here, but now you finally have a chance to see it with your own eyes. We'll let you see the landscapes, the people, and life on the road, all from the seat of our bicycles. The video was entered into Mountain Equipment Co-op's video competition, and we have a chance to win a $2000 gift card with it. We'll be the first to admit that by the time we got home we were ready to be leaving on another adventure, and so this gift card would go a long way to sending us from Hong Kong to Istanbul. Or wherever the next ride may be. So we're shamelessly asking you to visit the link and watch our video, and just as importantly - vote. Because every vote counts to get us through to the finals, and onto the road again.


Now I know we're a bit biased, but we think this video is awesome. And we're pretty sure you'll agree. Pretty crazy, and pretty sweet. Enjoy, vote, and pass it on. Thank you, and thank you all for your continued support throughout our 'ride for HOPE'.


Now click here to watch our video, and vote!!!


Or if the hyperlink doesn't work, copy and paste this address into the address bar:


http://www.mec.ca/Apps/sweetSpots/video_detail.jspFOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302888275&mvs_id=569&activity_cd=cycl