Ours is a story of adventure and true love!

I first saw Alex when I decided to bring my new to me road bike to the Clarkson Bike Club meeting in the fall of 2008. I had come back to school, not considering that most of my friends had graduated in May and I would be lonely without them. Alex was standing with another tall, dark, and handsome fellow and Luke. I thought the three of them looked like good potential for friends and so I walked over and introduced myself. With a broken hand from my first attempt at downhill racing I reluctantly went to the first bike club meeting on my road bike, hoping to meet folks of a pedaling mindset. I had already met Luke and Andy earlier in the week when I had eavesdropped one of their riding conversations and blatantly interjected, “you guys ride bikes!?” Expecting to meet the standard crew of Clarkson dudes, the three of us were quite surprised when the pint-sized-firecracker we had been “subtly” checking out bounced over and introduced herself. “Hi! I’m Ella!” The four of us had some awesome adventures as we explored Potsdam on our quests for swimming holes and new road rides. Living away from home in the dorms for the first time I found that I really appreciated Ella’s honest friendship, the space away from the dorms and and .... Over the course of one semester I was taken aback by how close of a friend Ella had become and how bummed I was she would be graduating. To make matters worse she would be leaving for the West Coast, and I had 4 more years of school in Potsdam.

By the time winter came and my time at Clarkson was coming to an end, Alex and I had become very close friends. I had enjoyed his honest constant smile innocence. He was always ready with a kind word and up for any adventure including the two of us building a jump in the lawn and me trying to learn tree bonks on my snowboard. Having come into the semester with the feeling that I just needed to complete the next couple months and then move on to my life in California, I was surprised at how attached I felt to my new friend. We remained in touch and managed to meet up as my mountain bike career began and I frequented California.

Our relationship had always been strictly platonic, and Ella had become a dear friend over the following six years since the fateful bike club meeting. After a full race season I was feeling tired of start clocks and course tape, so my roommate Josh Dillon and I planned a trip to Moab as a bit of an escape. Friends began piling on to the trip. Ella called me out of blue one day, looking for some solace as she had been going through a particularly difficult time. I mentioned our upcoming trip to Moab and she kindly invited herself along. This is where our stories differ a little. If you ask me, when I let Alex know that I was going through a rough patch, he was very excited and happy to invite me on his trip to Moab with some of his bike friends! I was ready to have a change of scenery and a week on a mountain bike with Alex sounded like the right medicine. I hadn’t had much experience with riding anywhere outside of southern california so I was grateful when Moab featured some of the similar rocks and wide open spaces that were in my comfort zone. We spent our days laughing and smiling, whooping and hollering on bikes and our evenings making meals and hanging out. Very quickly, I found myself with an undeniable crush on Alex. When it was time to leave and head back to California, my heart strings were fully committed to what would become a lifelong tangle.

A few months later, I was planning a visit to Vermont for amazing winter wonderland wedding of Rob and Mallory Reed which happened to be a short distance from Alex’s home in Stowe! As fate would have it, Alex was now single and we were able to acknowledge the mutual crush! Alex’s story about the next few months. A week before Valentine’s day, two full days less time than he had told me, I get a call from Alex letting me know he is around the block! Nervous, excited and full of possibility, I reached up and hugged Alex with all my heart! What do you do when your dream guy drives 3000 miles and shows up on your doorstep? From very early in Alex’s 4 month stay, I couldn’t help but whisper to sleeping Alex how much i was falling in love with him. During our waking hours, we would come up with creative ways to tell each other how special the other one was. What felt like an eternity, I finally built up the courage and conviction to say out loud “I LOVE YOU”. Moments later, the walls start moving and the pictures start giggling. The love between us is so strong it caused an earthquake! Spring came entirely too soon and Alex had to return to Vermont to fulfill his commitments to racing, friends, and family. He made me a one-a-day calendar of memories we had created in our time together for every day we would be apart from when he left until the end of the race season when he planned to return to California to be with me.

In July, Alex found out that he was one step closer to his lifelong goal of qualifying for a Downhill World Cup when he received a petition spot for the Leogang, Austria stop! I was so incredibly proud of him and I had never visited Austria, so I took some vacation time and flew to Austria! A couple of planes and trains later, I arrive in Leogang. I had what I thought was the correct address to his lodging, but I ended up turned around and lost in a small town in the Austrian alps! Desperate, and starting to get nervous because I didn't know the language, I found what I thought was Alex’s lodging and asked for help. The innkeeper didn't know who he was or where he could be staying but she was committed to helping me sort this out! Now with the assistance of the innkeeper and her Bernese Mountain Dog, I was had renewed hope in finding my LOVE! Walking through neighbors yards, between buildings, we rounded an alley and ran right into Alex! Alex explaining the rainbow part of earthquakes and rainbows.

Saying goodbye to Alex in Austria broke my heart! I had fallen even more in love with him than I thought was possible. I knew we would see each other again soon, but it hurt to know we were traveling back to the US only to be so far away from each other again. I spent my plane ride fantasizing about our future together and remembering the beautiful scenery in Austria. When you fly into Los Angeles International Airport, you start to descend just east of the San Bernardino Mountain Range. From this point west to the Pacific coast all you can see is cars, people, buildings and concrete. This was such a HUGE contrast to what we had experienced in Austria and what I knew growing up in Ithaca. As I looked down on the sea of intertwining highways, I burst into tears. These were tears of knowing that even though I was returning to the place I had lived for the past six years, I was not going home. I knew that home was meant to be somewhere where trees were in excess and the air smelled like oxygen. The moment I landed, I called Alex and asked him through teary eyes if I could move to Vermont instead of him moving to California.

we move to VT and live happily ever after

Georgian Bay