You know you want to send me mail :)

I am about to start my official fundraising effort and hopefully this blog will get a little more traffic. So I figured I should briefly explain my route and other trip logistics stuff. First off I have a route map from the Bike and Build website:

I will be leaving on June 18th from Portsmouth, New Hampshire and finishing on August 25th in Vancouver, British Columbia. We have a pretty detailed trip itinerary, which we may or may not be following completely. Here is the link to it. On that page you can also see the above image, and an explanation where your donations will go.

There are also pre-arranged mail drops along the route, and from what I hear care packages are the next best thing to seeing your friends and family along the route. In order to get any physical packages to me address them to:

Bike and Build
Anson Moxness
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

and put "Please hold for pickup on: DATE"
The locations are (and are available on the Bike and Build website)
- June 21 - New London, NH 03257
- June 28 - Indian Lake, NY 12842
- July 5 - Westfield, NY 14787
- July 11 - Plymouth, IN 46563
- July 19 - Pepin, WI 54759
- July 26 - Crookston, MN 56716
- August 2 - Culbertson, MT 59218
- August 9 - Cut Bank, MT 59427
- August 17 - Republic, WA 99166

That is about all for now, more updates later, and hopefully I'll be able to cut down on the length of these things...

Here we go

So my first post. I really have nothing to report other than I now have a blog. And there are 4 and a half months until I take off across country. It will be a grand old time. The snow in Hanover has kept me very busy skiing. Thanks to the snow gods, we had Dartmouth Winter Carnival Nordic ski races in Hanover for the first time in 4 years! That was the most interesting thing that went on in the last few weeks.

I guess before I start rambling I should introduce myself. Hi, I'm Anson Moxness. I am 19 and a freshmen... oh excuse me, first-year (we have to politically correct in our gender stigmatized terms) student at Dartmouth College. I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. I probably would still be there if there was a college where I could get a vigorous education, but sadly there isn't, so I came to New Hampshire. Right now I will probably be an engineering major, I also might minor in Anthropology.

I am primarily a Nordic skier, that's what I like to do, but I also just enjoy the outdoors. I started bike racing two summers ago and last year got myself (thanks to my job at REI) a very nice carbon race bike (which I will NOT be taking on Bike and Build). There are many more things about me but that seems a bit much for now.

I am really excited about the whole Bike and Build experience. The one thing I find somewhat daunting is the $4000 in fundraising. I'm not really sure where to start. I guess if you are reading this and feel generous and would like to donate any amount of money to the affordable housing cause click here and then select my name from the long list of people. Two thirds of the proceeds from the Northern US route will go to Habitat for Humanity branch in White River Junction, VT, just down the road from Hanover and Dartmouth. The remaining amount will be split among affordable housing groups along our route that we as a group will decide. A great cause for sure!

That is all, now back to my homework.... oh the life of a college student...