Tomorrow is the start of our 30th Annual bicycle trip.

Yes, it seems I really am that old.

I was 28 years old on that very first trip. There was Mary, Kathleen and me.

I don’t remember if I really thought too much about it, but I think I sort of assumed it would be kind of easy to cycle around the Gulf Islands; as if everything would be at sea level or something. We packed little frocks for the bars at night and thought we’d just wheel about with ease.

There’d be picnics and our hair would blow in the ocean breeze.

Oh yeh, baby…

Uh, nope.

Instead, we were shocked by the endless hills as we sweated and swore.  We seemed to spend a helluva lot more time going up hills then down. We all sucked at shifting and kept losing chains.  We fixed flats, our legs gouged by the stupid sprockets and slick with rookie marks of black grease. There were salt lines on our shirts and tide lines on our legs.

Our party dresses didn’t see much action and mostly stayed stuffed in the bottom of the panniers. At the end of each day, we’d gasp at the pain of walking up stairs. And we ate like beasts…oh my God, we could throw endless amounts of food at ourselves and burn it all up the next day.

In short, we had a blast.

Thirty years has passed since that first trip.

More women joined our group; some were single, some married, some had kids, some didn’t.  Over these three decades, we have survived collective and individual deaths and disasters. We have struggled with our anxieties and depressions and somehow, we managed to do the impossible as we supported each other when Kathleen died three years ago.

Like people everywhere, we’ve endured what didn’t seem possible.

And every year, we gather together once more. The last couple of years have been more like vacations than cycling trips. But because this is our thirtieth, we’ve decided to get back to our roots.

So the panniers are loaded. The camping gear is packed. It feels daunting to get back at it. But I remind myself that we are made of pretty tough stuff. We’ve cycled through sleet and up mountain passes. We’ve danced, we’ve cried, we’ve sweated and we’ve screamed.

But most importantly, we know that the best thing you can do is laugh. And oh yes, we laugh and laugh until we cry, because really, isn’t it almost the same thing?

We may not party quite as hard as we did thirty years ago, but let me assure you…we’re tougher than shit.

You know why?

We’ve endured.

Let the party begin…