The Real Beginning

I was 9 months pregnant with my fourth child on that fateful day when Tom...

...played golf!

Not that playing golf was that unusual. But on this particular day Tom played golf with Jack Lee.

Jack was selling real estate and he said, " I have a property to show you and Helen."

That afternoon in March of 1994 Jack took Tom and me to see a lovely old horse farm of 12 acres with a small white house in the front and rolling pastures in the back. "You can turn around and sell the little house with a couple of acres. Then you can build a big family home in the back" Jack suggested.

We liked it. We hadn't really been looking for a new place. But it was a lovely piece of property in the Westwood school district. And if we changed our minds we should be able to turn around and re-sell it pretty easily.

"Sure, Jack," we said. "We'll think about it and get back with you tomorrow"

"Oh, no!" Jack said, "There are 3 other couples looking at this particular property. If you think you want it, you need to come back to my office right now and place an offer!"

Whoa, Jack! I don't buy a pair of shoes that fast!

But Tom and I followed Jack back to the office in deep conversation. Thoroughly caught up in the moment, we agreed. We put down a low offer, not really expecting to be taken seriously.

At dinner that night we got a phone call. Our offer was accepted...?!

We were somewhat stunned. As we lay in bed that night I said with a bit of astonishment... "Tom, we're landowners."

We woke up that morning not expecting anything special. We went to bed that night  - landowners.

This was, in many ways, the beginning of our bike ride across America.

And I wasn't even a biker yet.