Pat & Kathy

Okay… here’s the news from the lower 48…
I received my Alaska jersey less than five days after I ordered it.  I saw it advertised in Denali somewhere during our 19-day Alaskan vacation.

I went out on a normal training ride after work, wearing the jersey for the first time.  I forgot what I was wearing.  After four “incidents” over a 30-mile ride, I realized during the fifth incident what was happening!  Here I thought L.A. drivers were being more belligerent than normal… yelling at me, practically coming out of their cars to say stuff to me, waving at me………  It was the jersey!  I understood when the fifth incident was a guy in the passenger seat of a car, leaning out of the window and yelling, “Hey!  Go Alaska!”  The jersey definitely got noticed.
I recently went up to the Oregon Bicycle Ride tour (www.oregonbicycleride.org <http://www.oregonbicycleride.org/> ) and took my Alaska jersey along to see what kind of reaction I would get.  I noticed on the roster of 250+ participants that two of them were from Kodiak.  I wore the jersey on the first day of mostly mountain climbing to give it maximum “exposure” to the participants.  I thought, “What are the Alaskans going to say when they see this jersey???”

Well, within 10 miles of the start, a guy comes up alongside me and says, “Hey, where’d you get the jersey?”  I told him and asked if he was one of the Alaskans on the trip.  He said he’s from Bend, OR, but lives in Alaska part of the year and that he KNOWS the designer of the jersey, Kathy. Small world, eh?

After about 25 miles I had run into the Kodiaks and they had never heard of or seen the jersey, but they thought it was cool.  I told them of your website.  So if a Dan and Kim from Kodiak order jerseys, you’ll know where they saw it for the first time… on some back road, climbing a mountain, in Oregon, being worn by a Southern Californian.

Then there were the jealous ex-Alaskans on the tour. At first they got under my skin… then I made it a game to see how jealous I could really make them.  This couple moved from Alaska nearly 15 years ago, and now call Bend, OR, their home.  They said, “You aren’t from Alaska, so why are you wearing an Alaska jersey?”  I told them of my recent long vacation there and that I liked the jersey.  They weren’t impressed.  A couple of days later they saw me in the chow line wearing my Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival t-shirt.  They called me the “Fake Alaskan”!!!  After that I made sure I ran into them when I wore my Ketchikan, Juneau, Hoonah, and Denali t-shirts!  HA HA HA!

Here I am, in my jersey, eating a specialty concoction of the rest stops… saltine, salt side down, dollop of peanut butter, topped off with a cucumber pickle chip.
Dennis M
Tujunga, CA