Hello all :)

Nathan and I are closing in on completing our preparations for the bike trip - yyaaayyy!!  There were times when we weren't sure if we were going to be able to leave on time b/c we had so much left to do. 

And, here we are, roughly 6 weeks after we started preparing for the trip, and we're almost ready to go!  I think my hunch earlier about most people taking 6 months to a year to prepare for this trip was right - haha.

You know when you get so busy and you work so much that you actually lose track not only of what time it is, but also what day it is?  I hardly ever sustain that level of busyness, but preparing for this trip has been like that.  We look back and wonder "What happened to July? I can't believe it's gone!" 

Here's a pic of us and Nathan's bike with 4 of his panniers on (they're empty).  Taking this picture was such a milestone for us, because it means that our bikes are almost ready to go!!  Yippee!

We are currently on the road, driving from Dallas, TX to Hamilton, IN to see Nathan's little sister, Carleen, get married to Zach, her high school sweet heart. Nathan's parents live on a small lake, and the wedding will be in their backyard. It should be beautiful! Maybe we can get some video for you to watch.

So, back to the bike trip, before we left Texas....:

Nathan put the finishing touches on our panniers...well, all except one.  We brought the supplies to finish it in Indiana.  (Can you guess which panniers are mine?)

I made two bright colored bike skirts to wear over my bike shorts and leggings.  They were really hard to make, actually, and I'm not sure if it's b/c I've never made skirts before, or b/c I made them out of spandex (and sewing machines and spandex don't always get along very well!).  I offered one to Nathan, but he didn't want it...odd.

We've gathered ALMOST all of our supplies. Our packing list has over 150 items!!!  We still have a few things to get in Indiana, and if we can't find them there, we'll just keep looking while we're riding.  (we'll post the packing list in a more readable format soon.  we just wanted to show you this pic so you could get the gist of our HUGE list!)

Nathan broke down our bicycles and packed them in boxes for shipping, and we FedEx-ed them to our starting point, the Astoria Bicycle Repair Shop in Astoria, OR.  They will arrive Monday, 8/16.  I called the shop to let them know we had shipped the bikes, and they said they are normally closed on Mondays - eek!  But one of the owners, Ian, said he would be happy to come hang out on Monday anyway and wait for our bikes to arrive.  Wow!  So, our first recommendation of the trip goes to the Astoria Bicycle Repair shop - they seem really great.

We are currently about 850 miles into our 1,100 mile trip to Indiana.  We left at 2am this morning, and we expect to arrive around 11pm or midnight.  We took a video in the car, and we also have some pictures of our almost-final preparations for the trip we wanted to share w/ you, but we're at a McDonalds right now using their free wi-fi, but it seems to be a pretty weak connection. YouTube estimates it will take about 370 minutes to upload our 4 minute video.  So we're not going to include the video and pictures now. :-)  We'll put them in once we get to Nathan's parent's house.

Hope you all are having a great day!  Thanks for keeping up with our activities, and feel free to post a comment and let us know what you're up to, too!

See ya later, alligators.

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