The Tours Department is Thankful

November 25, 2014

Tours team: Arlen Hall, Mandy Hale, Darrah Roger, Lydia Hess, Mike Lessard 

The last tour has wrapped up for 2014! Another tour season complete, oh the adventures people had and the stories that people took away. There is not much time to stop and breathe, to look back over the year to reflect as we are already in full swing kicking off the packed-full 2015 tour season, and glancing all the way to 2016. 

With that said, the Tours Department has much to be thankful for. In no way is this list complete, so if you want to add to our thankful list, feel free to comment at the bottom.  

1. Our participants: Without the riders we would not have tours. We are thankful for the variety of interests and personalities that each of you bring you to our tours. You make our tours great!

2. Celebrations: The tours team is comprised of 5 people. We are especially thankful for how well we work together. The Adventure Cycling Tours Department thrives in finding reasons to celebrate and throw parties (big or small). We celebrate every chance we get and snacks are often close at hand. I can’t think of a day where we didn’t laugh at something. Here are a few examples of reasons we threw parties this year: 
1. Birthdays
2. Work anniversaries
3. Successful tour announcement 
4. Because it's Tuesday 
5. End of tour season
6. Tour sign-up milestones 
7. National Pancake Day
8. National Banana Split Day 
9. The tours team filled over 50 coffee punch cards this year 
10. The discovery of Happy Birthday Oreos 
11. Start of tour season 
12. We need to inventory and organize the gear closets — someone bring treats and let's make it a party! 

If you have any other suggestions on things we should celebrate, send them our way! We are always open to suggestions. But what I hope you get from this is that we are beyond thankful for a positive work environment within the Tours Department.

3. Leaders that go above and beyond: Our leaders are extremely valuable. The Adventure Cycling tour leaders really make a difference in the tours success. The Tours Department would like to give an enormous shout out of thanks to those leaders who stepped up to mentor new leaders and work hard as ambassadors for Adventure Cycling whether they are on tour or not. Adventure Cycling leaders truly exemplify the mission of Adventure Cycling as a whole. 

4. Vendors: There is no way to count how many people we work with to get our tours running. The tours team is thankful for all of the outside organizations that work with us to make our tours run well.    

5. Staff members of Adventure Cycling: With 85 tours running in 2014 and a planned 102 in 2015, the Tours Department leans on others in Adventure Cycling. To those who have had a hand in working with the Tours Department, thank you!  

As I said before, this is the short list. Thank you for keeping the wheels turining and may you find much to be thankful for.    

Not all coffee cards were photographed 

Post  by Lydia Hess | Top photo by Jennifer Milyko | Bottom photo by Lydia  Hess

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ON THE ROAD is written by the tours team — Lydia, Darrah, Mike, Mandy, and Arlen — tours specialists and intrepid bicyclists, covering all things related to the Adventure Cycling tours department. Check out our 2015 Guided Tours today!