It’s 5AM on Monday and I still haven’t been to bed. As this trip gets closer I seem to notice more and more city noise and it certainly doesn’t help with my racing mind. Yesterday I was able to work out a few things for this trip so I assumed I would have rested easy this past evening. It appears I was wrong about that.

The new seat is now installed on the bike but I didn’t even have time to give it a test ride. I reinstalled my license plate lights to keep the cops from getting me on a technicality and I also received my replacement phone which now has a working hotspot function.

This trip has been in the works for a few weeks but even as of yesterday I am still buying things that I had missed. Every time I remember to purchase something I seem to remember something else with it. I need to get out of here before I’m out of money!

I also had my first camping experience yesterday. Rule #1: Don’t try to setup a tent indoors on hardwood flooring. During that whole process I have never felt so stupid and inexperienced. Everything was all over the place. Nothing would stand correctly. To top that, I ended up folding the tent incorrectly and had trouble getting it back into the stuff sack. After some slight convincing and much hesitation, I decided to be that guy who goes to the park to convince himself he knows how to setup a tent. Eight minutes later ..

I was now a man. It’s amazing how helpful a few stakes are.

The last of my big ticket items are arriving tomorrow so you can expect an update either Tuesday or Wednesday.