Gonzo Girl

I am nowhere near ready.  

Yes, my bags are packed. Tickets purchased. Itinerary sorted. I’ve even wrapped my head around it.

No, it’s my body. My physical readiness. 

Basically, I’m doomed.

Day after tomorrow, Rick and I will ride from our front door to Kingston and catch the ferry to Edmonds, Washington. There, we will board the Amtrak Empire Builder and spend the next two days traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  

And then, we will ride nearly 800 miles over the next month or so.  

When we spontaneously decided to do this trip about a month ago, September seemed so far in the distance. Light years, really. Between, bad air quality, super hot days, a quick trip to see old friends, having friends stay with us, and another quick trip to see family, we have had very few little time to get our real training in.  The thing is, I’ve done this before and know how it can turn out.  You’d think I’d learn.

Just a few of the things we had to do instead of training. It was impossible.

About a million years ago (40 to be exact) when Rick and I were in college, we bought our first bikes and started touring. The first year we cycled all over and could clock about 50 miles a day without much training. Well, we took the winter off and then the next summer decided to do a trip from Bellingham to Whidbey, to Port Townsend to Port Angeles to Victoria.  Kind of a big deal.  So we trained for a few days and set out on our first leg.  Bellingham to Deception Pass on Whidbey Island. That’s about 50 miles. Piece of cake!!

Nope.  Awful.  Excruciatingly difficult – especially for the uncallused bum.  We ended up taking a few rest days in Port Townsend and the rest of the trip was spent thinking way too much about our back ends. In fact, Rick has a whole cautionary tale (ask our kids to recite it to you)  that he tells about that first day ride. “I pedaled standing up for miles on end. Up hills, through valleys, in the rain, until we reached our muddy campsite.”  Clearly, the trauma of that tour, so many years ago, is forever etched in my mind.

This time is going to be different. Yesterday, I firmly announced to Rick that I AM MAKING ADJUSTMENTS to our schedule. So the plan is that we will ride much shorter distances at the front end and basically continue our training as part of the trip. We will have a rest after the first two or three days. Period.  And if this adventures takes an extra week, so be it.  I’m not negotiating.

But, if I learned anything from our 1500 mile trip from Lisbon to Amsterdam last year, it is that planning is really just my mind’s way of not freaking out.  “Plan away!”, my brain says.  “Yes,  good plan!  Keep up all that planning.  Planning will make everything much, much easier.”

So the reality is, we will see what happens.