And They're Off (Aug 10)

I dropped Anne and the kids off at the airport around 4:30 this morning. They have a very long flight back to Hartford via San Francisco and Washington D.C. (4 hour layover) and probably won't be back in Salem until well after midnight. That first phone call home is going to be brutal, especially if I decide to bag this thing and ask Anne to come out and get me.

I headed back to Snohomish from the airport to start the ride and left Benjy and Rie's (our son and D-in-L) at 6:30. It was only a 10 minute ride to where I caught Rt 9 north to Arlington and from there Rt 530 to Rockport. Rockport will be our first entry onto map section 1 of the Northern Tier bike route.

My fully loaded bike seems much heavier than I expected and handles a little sluggish, but I suppose I'll get used to it. I thought I was packing pretty light, but a pound here and a pound there starts to add up fairly quickly.

Tom, Sam and Steve caught up to me in the car at around 8 this morning. The plan is for them to rotate between driving and riding. Sam has to be back in Atlanta on Sunday so they will be riding with me for the first three and a half days. Glenn definitely won't be able to make the ride, and so Dean will drive along with me for about a week starting Thursday or Friday. One good thing for me will be putting my gear in the car for the first 8 to 10 days. That should put me past most of the mountains before I'm on my own fully loaded.