I've planned a massive Aikido/photography biketrip for this summer and would like to spread the word. I've listed a detailed itenary below, but you can read the c
liff notes on my blog here.
My name is Beau Saunders and I train at Aikido of Santa Cruz. I will be joining Wendy Dennis of North Coast Aikido and together we will be biking from Seattle WA to Los Angeles CA. We have planned the trip around 2 seminars and hope to visit as many dojo's as possible along the way.
I will be arriving in Seattle on the 6th of June and plan on training at Tenzan Aikido with Bookman Sensei, before training at Two Cranes Dojo for the
Cutting Edge Seminar. From Seattle we will be heading out to the coast and down a ways, before cutting in to Portland. I expect to be in Portland for a few days, around the weekend of the 16th, before heading out to cross the Cascades, arriving in Bend on or around the 21st. We hope to train with Reitan Sensei in Bend, and also stay for my sisters wedding, before heading out down the east side of the Cascades. We plan to arrive in Ashland and train with Freidl Sensei (around June 26), before heading to Arcata and North Coast Aikido.
We will be staying in Arcata/Lost Coast for a few days before heading to Honeydew Aikido, and then through Avenue of the Giants and out to the coast. We will head through Ft. Bragg and Gualala before heading into Sebastopol and Kuma Kai Dojo for the 5th of July. The next few days is still up in the air, but we will be in Santa Cruz before the start of the
Santa Cruz Aikido Summer Retreat, July 10-14th.
I've got some work to take care of after the retreat, but from there we will head to Aikido of Monterey, and down through Big Sur on our way to San Louis Obispo, Santa Barbara and finally finishing in Los Angles around July 30th.
If you live along the way and would like to join us for a few days, we would love the company. We plan on camping much of the time, but would be happy if other accommodations were available. A big part of the trip is to meet and train with as many people as possible. We are not style specific, and enjoy training with people from the Aikikai, Iwama, Ki Society, etc. Please send me a message, or post a comment if you think you might want to meet up at some point along the way. I dont know how things will work out once we get on the road, but we would love to make as much as is feasible happen.
When Im not training, I have planned to spend as much time as possible taking photographs of all the amazing natural beauty I pass through. I am a photographer by trade and have every hope to take a collection of photographs for a Pacific West Coast portfolio. You can see some of my work on my
website, Rainbeau Pictuers.
To help with some of the expenses of the trip, I have created a project on Kickstarter, a crowd funding website. I have some very generous print rewards available and would greatly appreciate any support you are willing to give.
Please view the project here.
Thank you all for your support and I look forward to training with you soon!
