It's Everywhere You Want To Be...

I thought I would show up on this blog and actually give a quick overview about our preparations for Tuesday.  I've had a lot of "fun" calling the airlines and verifying booking numbers, asking about baggage checks and contacting my bank to let them know that the charges that will be on my account will (hopefully) be mine. Okay, I'll admit, I LOVE doing paperwork, so, yeah, it's been fun :P  We also went shopping yesterday and bought a sleeping bag and waterproof shoes for nate, new (bigger and better) tents for both of us, biker gloves for me and waterproofing spray all for twenty dollars more than we spent on our last measly tents that were horribly overpriced.  Let's just say it was a very satisfying trip and economical.

Now we just need to box our bikes, pack our bags and weigh everything to make sure it will all fit.  According to baggage it looks like we are going to pay $50 each to check our bikes (the box might also include all our bike stuff and our sleeping bags and tents, our actual bag will be free and I can still carry on 22lbs and an additional personal item (laptop!) so we should be good. 

For everyone who wants to party with us we are meeting up on Saturday at noon to say our goodbyes and to eat food and make fun of people.  I'm very excited about that.

My friend Le Le is going to be driving us down to Las Vegas, we are going to take the jeep to ensure we can bring everything with us.  Along with paperwork, I very much enjoy packing.  I don't know why, but it's strangely fun, so I'm actually really excited over that.

So, that's the update so far, I paid for our storage unit three months ahead, I called my cell phone company so they are supposed to shut my phone off from June 2nd to August 16th. The bank seems happy, the airport said we can bring our bikes in boxes, my mom sent us some extra money as a surprise so I'm going to keep Nate and myself on the same budget and mom's money will just be extra.  I'm getting stoked...

See you all on Saturday!  (Hopefully)

Presents

My mom will be sending us a card with some money on it. It's a prepaid Visa card that we can use for emergencies. If we use up the whole card, she can send us more money, so that's always nice, just in case something bad happens.

In other news, I tried biking from Manti to Spring City (30+ miles round trip) but about a mile out of Ephraim found that the excessive rain and small amount of road made it nearly impossible. If nothing all of this has proven to me that we should have more road on the road, as leway for bikers. Biking through mud is about 5 to 10 times more effort than biking on pavement.

I'm trying to find out if Ireland and Scotland have paved biking trails. I'd hate to get there and not be able to really do much. I'm pretty sure England will be very bike friendly.

It's a brand new day...

I've got my protein shake. I've got my iPod. I've got a feelin'.

I'm gonna go to Ephraim. For those not familiar, Ephraim is about 8 miles total from where I live in Manti. That puts me at a round trip of about 16 miles or so. Wish me luck.

Need to work more.

I've been sick, but we finally got moved out. We need to start really take training seriously so that we can get up to 30 miles a day. I tried biking around four blocks and I was pretty winded, will need a lot more practice. Biking through the alps will be no picnic and I'm glad we've got this time to concentrate on practice. I think we should start by setting up and taking down our tents every day, and living out of our backpacks.