So, how's that working for you?

Hah!  Obviously, not so well.  Here I am, 5 or 6 months later, and I still have not put any of my other stories into place.  But I do think about it, and I am about to get on a bike again, and that seems to be the thing that inspires me, and so here goes  . . .

We are now on stage 7 (or maybe 8) of a multi-activity, multi-state, multi-focused adventure.  Roger and I left home over a week ago to visit with Dana and the girls, driving to Tahoe to see them in a summer theater production.  Then, after just a day's visit, we took the girls with us to Texas to meet their extended family on my side (including a whole passel of cousins.) That leg in itself included driving down to Waco to visit with Mom and Dad - the girls great-grandparents - before spending the better part of a week at my sister's home north of Fort Worth. Flying back to Reno, we returned the girls to their mom and then drove up to Seattle, where I write this.  Tomorrow, we'll head off on the tandem to Vancouver, where we will meet up with Mark Friis for another great Wheeltales tour through the San Juan Islands.  Then, of course, we'll have to get ourselves home again.  We figure to be away for at least three weeks.

Before we left home, I had to gather our biking and camping gear and get it over to Mark to come in the van from Redlands.  With us, we needed clothes for Tahoe, and then the Texas leg of our trip. I had made jam from our plums and apricots, and was carrying that, plus fresh lemons, for my mom and sisters.  Back in Tahoe, I sorted and repacked, moving the rest of our gear and clothing into the bottom of the suitcases so that we'd have what we needed for the bike portion of our trip ready at hand. Now I am stuffing the panniers, hoping to balance the small load of items we have needed all along and therefore couldn't send from home with Mark. 

Clothes and gear on us, packs and panniers ready to load

I am looking forward to getting on the bike tomorrow and pedaling away towards Vancouver, in no small part because once we head off, we are GONE.  Whatever we have with us, we've got. If I have forgotten something, too bad.  And that is one of the really beautiful things about touring. I can't remember if I have ever written about this before, but it's truly a wonderful thing.  You have what you have.  If you need something, you figure it out, but you just can't take it all with you, so you don't.  You get to leave a lot behind.  We don't do that very often in our lives.  Turns out it's very liberating, and I can't recommend it enough.

Put this back in the car - for later!

So here's to leaving *most* of it all behind, and following the open road. I'll write if I can.