Wandering with Tedder and Tamara

Thu Mar 1: To Eugene. Shop at Fry's and REI on the way, dinner with OBS, evening at Shasta's.
Fri Mar 2: To Sacramento. Dinner and evening with Lance.
Sat Mar 3: Through Mountain View, lunch at Alice's with Seth. Stop at Laguna Seca, maybe Hearst Castle, stay in San Luis Obispo?
Sun Mar 4: See Hearst Castle? To LA, dinner and evening with Matt.
Mon Mar 5: To Long Beach, dinner and evening with Squish & Diesel.
Tue Mar 6: lunch in San Diego? Cross at Tecate and stay in San Felipe?

(go down Baja, then ferry across)
Tue Mar 13: stay in Basaseachic with Gustavo?
Wed Mar 14: stay in Creel with Gustavo?

So we had an excellent evening with our OBS (Oregon Biker Scum) friends. We ate at Buster's BBQ in Tigard with a shockingly large turnout- I think there were about 16 people there. I tried to talk to most of them.

As usually, some great things came out of it- not just good food and good company. First, my friend Ken had some suspension bits for the DL650 in his garage. That'll help raise the bike up a little, perfect for 2-up touring. Second, our friend Gustavo is going to be in Copper Canyon a couple days before we were planning on being there. Since Tamara's brother Lance won't be in Sacramento when we were planning on going through, maybe we'll take a different route, skip Baja, and show up in Copper Canyon with Gustavo and his pals.

After that, maybe we'll go up and over to Baja. Or maybe we'll skip Baja. Who knows?

We had a good afternoon shopping. We got almost everything we needed- sleeping bag for Tamara, dry bags for both our sleeping bags, noncotton clothes, padlocks for the Happy Trails luggage, etc. Andy and Bax was our first stop. Good choice- they had drybags and such at a good price. From there we went to the Columbia Sportswear outlet (not a lot of selection- pair of pants for Ted), then GI Joes (lots of clothes for Tamara, plus padlocks), finally REI (sleeping bag pad, bug spray, undies for Tamara).

Tomorrow: install raising links on the bike, change oil, business lunch, family photos, dinner with Tamara's family.

Looks like our house is now on the market:
http://windermere.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=listing.PP3ListingDetail&ListingID=17462253

All the pictures look pretty good.

We're in Vancouver (Washington). We rode up from the coast last night- it was very cold, but mostly dry.

It was nice to get the bike completely packed for the trip- we have a little extra space in the luggage, which is a good thing. We still have things to do- need to shop for some clothes, need a sleeping bag for Tamara, and need dry bags for the sleeping bags so they can be lashed onto the luggage. Overall, we're in pretty good shape.

It's weird to not be employed or anything. We slept for about 14 hours last night.

So Wednesday and Thursday were hectic, getting the house ready to move. Friends started showing up around 4:30pm Thursday and we were NOT AT ALL READY. We ended up chatting for a bit, then Rob S. and I went over and got the truck. It was only about a mile away, so it didn't take too long.

However, it was a 24 foot truck (24 foot box, plus the length of the cab). So it was almost impossible to back onto the driveway. Finally we got it- but it took up the length of the driveway and the width of the road. Oh well, neighbors will cope.

Once others arrived (Hi Phil and Debb!), we started loading the truck. We loaded the front third of the truck, which was a lot of work, and a lot of heavy stuff. Once more people showed up, we loaded the piano, washer/dryer, tool chest, and other miserably heavy things.

By 6pm the truck was about 50% loaded. As more people showed up, it became apparent that (a) we weren't completely done, and (b) it wasn't going to fit. Still, we got all but a foot or two of the truck loaded.

Friday morning we started actually finishing out rooms. The real estate photographer arrived at 9:30am, so we frantically cleared rooms for photos. In about 45 minutes we had the house unloaded down into the garage for final sorting and packing- the photog thought we were professional house cleaners because we were so quick.

We finished loading the moving truck, then I went to UHaul and rented a 5x8 trailer to tow behind it. (yes, towed a UHaul behind a Budget). Now the rig was REALLY long and heavy. I had to stay on 55th Avenue when I came back, since it was too long to take on our dead-end street. We packed the entire trailer (5x8x6) by walking everything that distance. It actually took all day, and was incredibly exhausting.

Finally, we loaded the Miata trailer with wood and metal, strapped everything, ate our first food of the day, and left town at 4:30 on Friday.

Bad time to leave. Traffic from Seattle to Olympia was terrible- stop and go, which is real fun in a heavy rig like that. Made me think of people I know who have driven trucks for a living and what that must be like on a regular basis. Finally got to Olympia about 7:30, made it to the beach a few minutes before 10pm.

Saturday morning, we enlisted the help of my brother (Tim) and his wife (Becky), my dad, plus two locals. I was shocked- we unloaded the truck and trailer in two hours. It took a full day to load! It would have taken less time but it was stormy- the rain was coming at a 45 degree angle, most of an inch of rain that morning.

Returned the truck and trailer, then spent the afternoon napping.

Next? Need to get the bike from storage, find a couple of little things, then mount the Givi top and side cases. Tomorrow we'll ride on the beach to visit grandma and grandpa. We'll start actually packing the bike, too. Monday we need to do some legal things (power of attorney, signatures at banks), then we may head into Vancouver/Portland.

I'm really happy. I went to a GI specialist today, who told me my pain/heartburn/whatever was probably (mostly) mental, encouraged me to adjust my antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. C'mon. Really. I've tried everything from a box of Tums, Zantac, and Prilosec, all the way to Xanax and Percocet.

She said she'd run an endoscopy anyhow, mainly because of our timeline. So, in to the procedure room, a little Verced to erase the mental etch-a-sketch. After I wake up, they show me pictures from the endoscopy- there is an ulcer (or two) in my esophagus.

Now, they weren't happy, but I am! It's great to actually see a problem, rather than be told it's in your head.

They've sent off for cultures of this thing. It can happen from having a pill get stuck as you are swallowing it, but they really think this is CMV. It's considered rare in healthy adults- but what else is new for me? Just to make sure, they are running an HIV/AIDS test on me. I'm not worried, of course.

So, what's next? They'll tell me the results of the culture in a couple of days. In the meantime, I have a prescription to drink Lidocaine and take a pill that is used to coat the esophagus lining. It'll heal on its own, and it isn't something that would be a long-term worry like ecophageal spasm (which doesn't have a good solution).

We'll blog about the rest of our progress later. Things are on track for Thursday.

Labels: health, pretrip, ted

Didn't mention that we went to Glazer's Camera yesterday and got our photo situation sorted out. We're taking the 75-300mm lens we had, but also bought a 18-200mm Tamron. It's a much better quality lens than the crappy Minolta 28-200 that we had on there, and it gives us the better wide-angle capability (important for Tamara).

That lens set us back a considerable amount. Yow.

Labels: photography, pretrip

This is my first blog post ever!

An update from me, as emailed to my family, with a few minor changes. Then I'm off to work on finishing up the painting (hopefully).

Hi family, I having been very behind in keeping everyone up-to-date, so I apologize. Things have been pretty hectic for me the last 2 1/2 weeks, and you'll see why! Relationships Ted and I are back together, and taking a 'nothing to lose' approach; basically giving it another try, with high hopes, but acknowledging that if things don't work out we're in no worse position than before and all the better if things do work out. We've been doing well so far, and I've been happy to be spending more time with Ted. Jobs Ted was laid off February 1, and immediately started thinking about how he'd like to approach this in order to get what he wants out of life. His next career move will likely be to continue his education in computer science, which means going back to school somewhere in the states or Canada. First though, he thought this would be a great chance to do something he's always wanted to do - take an extended trip on his motorcycle. Motorcycle trip Ted's vision of an open-ended motorcycle trip to South America (and beyond?) is something he's always wanted to do, and I have always wanted to travel to see other cultures, art, architecture, and to just experience the world. I decided to join him (this was when we were first getting back together) and so we're starting this new adventure together. We are going to sell our house, put our belongings in storage, and use the money to finance a trip South to Mexico, Central & South America, and who knows where else. We have no idea how long we will be gone - it all depends on how fast our money runs out, if we are enjoying the trip, how the bike holds up, etc. We figure our money is likely to last about 5 years, so we're not making any commitments to be back anytime soon. We are going to only take one bike for now and see how it goes, that means sharing a very small amount of packing space, but allows for one of us to 'drive' while the other can take a break as passenger. It will also be easier to stay together, but will definitely be less flexible if we want to do separate things at any point. We are taking very few belongings, as they all have to fit on the bike - a few changes of clothes, our big ditial camera, and a smaller digital camera, a mini laptop, tools for the bike, medicines & first aid, sleeping bags, plus all our motorycycle-specific gear (protective boots, pants, jacket, helmets, gloves). It will be a tight squeeze for sure! So the past couple weeks have been filled with getting the house ready to sell, our stuff ready for storage, and us ready for the trip. So far, the house is a couple days out from being listed by our real estate agents, and we need to finish packing all our stuff to go into storage. Ted & I are almost ready for the trip - I just need one final dental visit, but we've gotten all our shots & medicine for the trip. On the house, I've been painting over some of my wild & crazy colors with a more sedate off-white, and we had the woodshop door demo-ed and replaced with a set of french doors. It really looks nice and opens up the hallway downstairs. We also had carpet installed, and I have been working on painting the walls & ceiling since they had lots of screw holes, etc in them from the dust collection system. Our plan now is to get the house listed Monday or Tuesday, and finish packing up everything by Thursday. We are getting a truck Thurs evening, having a bunch of friends come over to help us load it up, then driving it to the coast where Ted's parents live to put everything in storage Friday. We will spend a few days there, then head to Vancouver to spend a few days visiting. Then we will make our way down through Oregon & California to Baja to start our adventure! Well, it has been a long email, so I will wrap up. Ted & I will be posting blog entries along the way whenever we have an internet connection, and email will be the best way to stay in touch with us. The blog is at www.perljam.net/wandering I have already given my phone to someone who is taking over my contract, so if you want to talk, you need to call Ted's phone (we'll have it until we are out of the country).

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Nothing special has happened since going to ER. I still have something
weird going on, but no idea what it is. I see a GI specialist on Monday.
The hope now is that it goes away on its own. Certainly some of my
trouble is from simply working too hard- my upper body is really sore
from moving and working on so many things.

Went to UHonda this morning and got my new Anakee tire fitted. I'd had
it sitting at the house for a while, just waiting to be mounted. I got
there about a half hour before they opened, it took longer to remove and
reinstall the rim than it did to set the new tire!

While there, I noticed the rear brakes were out of pad material. I
thought the brakes were getting mushy, but thought I still had more pad
left (I checked a few thousand miles back, and there was plenty). In any
case, I was wrong- there was hardly a paper-thin coating of friction pad
remaining. So I went to Aurora Suzuki, got the new brakes, then
installed them at home.

Our friend JC came over and helped with the house. What a big difference
having another set of hands makes! Especially because I am a horrible
painter- so Tamara's been doing all the paint. With the three of us
working on paint today, a large amount got done. Not sure how many days
are left- probably 2- but at least we are getting there.

So much to do.

So I've had some weird indigestion, I figured it was stress-related acid reflux or something. It came on quite suddenly though, so I called my doctor's office. They got me in the same day, which makes me think they were worried, too.

Basically: doesn't seem to be acid reflux or something similar. Was worried it was gall stones, so I went to ER last night and spent some time with the ultrasound tech. Got home late- the net is that things seem to be okay, probably just burned part of my stomach lining or something. Take Prilosec, it should get better in a week.

Back to normal life- Tamara got more of her dental work done, hopefully she'll be done on Saturday. She also painted even more around the house. I worked with the carpet installers, so now the CARPET IS DONE! Yay!

My trip laptop, a Vaio TX750, arrived on-time yesterday. It's a wonderful little piece of kit- tiny, with a tiny keyboard, but plenty of power and a dual-layer DVD burner drive. That means we can blog on the road, edit and store our photos, watch movies, send backups of photos home, and store/publish our GPS tracks like I did in Alaska.

Labels: geek, medical, pretrip

Wow. How many crazy days can I have?

Went to costco this morning. One year of antimalarial pills is a couple pennies under $30. They'll be in tomorrow. What a deal- it was going to be at least $120 everywhere else I checked.

Came home, then time with MAD: Ran up to Tamara's apartment, then back home, then lunch, then back to break down my fancy-pants dual-core Shuttle box for MAD. Also loaded my MIG welding setup in Toucan's truck, and talked to a stupid carpet installer/estimator.

Tamara ran off for her replacement drivers license (they *mail* them? hmm, didn't know that). I worked on clearing out the woodshop. Also got more paint, then came back and painted the ceiling in the woodshop (still painting, as of 11:30pm).

I spent way too much time researching my FSA reimbursement (if someone is interested, I'll post how I got nearly $2000 in free money), then several hours researching international health insurance. Thought I had it figured out a couple of times, but didn't. Feh.

Are we on schedule? I hope so. I'll know tomorrow if my Happy Trails gear is shipping now or soon, once I know it has shipped we'll schedule our going-away party. (should be the 22nd).

If things go as I expect, we'll have the house prepped for the market sometime between Friday and Monday.

Labels: health, pretrip

I added a couple of people to the auto-notify mailings this morning, so welcome. If anyone else is reading this and wants to be added, drop me an email or leave a comment.

More importantly, this is from a senior white house official who would like to remain anonymous: "The mainland, from the ferry landing at Los Mochis to Creel is much more interesting than Baja. Architecturally, historically, culturally, geographically...most every way. Unless you like Moses Lake. Then you'll *love* Baja!"

Hah.

Labels: baja, funny, mexico, moto

We jumped on the bike and left around 10:30am today. First stop- up to the doctor at PacMed. Always kind of weird to go there, considering I worked at Amazon in that building for three years.

Doctor liked what we were doing, gave us her personal email so we can chat on the road about medical things, and helped answer some of our final questions about how to handle medicines, dosages, and the minor medical issues we have. Also poked us for tetanus and wrote some extended prescrips for normal drugs.

Next was past our place to a travel medicine clinic. (riders: it's basically across the street from RMC. nonbikers: it's near Ikea). It so happens they share a building with AAA, so we could kill two birds with one stone. Didn't remember if our appointment was at 1 or 1:30, so we went in at 1. It was later, but they went ahead and got us going.

Basically, it boils down to this: we got our yellow fever vaccine, plus our refrigerated typhoid vaccine. The latter is better than a shot because it lasts longer and doesn't tend to interfere with other jabs.. many travelers can't do it, because it means carrying an insulated cooler for 8 days, not easy to do if you are on a plane. Perfect for us though.

Lots of talk about malaria, where to be worried, what to do, etc. She prescribed Doxycycline for us- decently priced ($40-50/year at costco, hopefully), easy to carry, doesn't interfere with riding, easy to get in other countries, etc.

Lots of talk about poo. (anyone else watching Scrubs lately?) Talked about how to be realistic about what we eat and drink, and yet stay somewhat safe. Everyone's favorite anthrax drug,
Cipro, ends up being the right thing for traveler's diarrhea. Usage is absolutely opposite of how you normally take antibiotics- you are supposed to start taking it as soon as the curse hits, and once you feel better, stop taking it immediately. So if you have Montezuma's Revenge for 3 days, you only take the Cipro for 3 days. It'll take a while to wrap my brain around that, since that is opposite of how antibiotics are normally used.

Through the atrium to AAA. Needed our IDL, plus the variation that is accepted in Brazil. Maybe we could have done without the latter- they are only good for a year anyhow. Oh well. We'll figure out what to do next year.

Raced from there back to downtown to get Tamara to her endodontist appointment. Still trying to get those British teeth fixed up for the trip.

I knew I had at least 1.5 hours to kill, so I went up to a DOL office and got new tabs for the bike, then went up to Ride West for some gloves. I was intending on getting yet another set of Held Steve gloves, but they didn't have any, since Held is still messing around with their distribution channels after the Intersport reorganization.

I tried on a million pair of gloves, frustrated that they were relatively stiff and I was perfectly in between sizes. I was about to give up, but I asked the fellow that was helping me (Bill) if there was anything in a slightly lighter weight glove. I really didn't want something mesh, but I didn't need a racy carbon fiber thing, either.

Bill was great- he's the parts manager at Ride West, and he is a fan of Held Steve gloves, obviously a riding enthusiast, not someone who was trying to push a sale. He offered to call me in a few months when they got the Steves in rather than pushing something else on me.

Well, I found the gloves of my dreams the moment I tried on a size 10 BMW Rallye 2. These are basically the official glove of the BMW GS, so I shouldn't be surprised they were so nice, but .. wow. They are really stretchy, still have excellent protection (including hard knuckles and kangaroo skin palm), but breathable and strechy. Did I mention how stretchy they are? It's like the difference between wearing a set of big ski gloves and a set of lightweight mittens. The latter can come in a lot of different sizes and will fit much more comfortably than the ski gloves. That's how these are.

It gets even better- I was encouraged to try on the slightly smaller size (I was running between 9 and 10). I told them there was no reason to bother, they couldn't get more comfortable.

Well, they did. I put on the size 9 gloves and wore them for about 15 minutes. The fingers were long enough, the material didn't bunch up, my hands could BREATHE, wow. I'm so glad the Steves are so hard to find now- I have a new best friend in my BMW gloves.

Ride West has a soft spot in my heart anyhow. When I got back into riding, I researched bikes and bought a used F650ST from Ride West. The salesman stayed late, loaned gear, patiently helped me through things, and I've been a fan of that shop ever since. Keep in mind I've never owned a BMW besides the F650- but I still feel very much at home when I visit their shop. If they sold Suzuki parts I'd probably never go anywhere else :-)

Back from there to downtown. Parked on the sidewalk for about 20 minutes until Tamara was done with her mouth remodeling. We went to the grocery store, got prescrips and some food, then home. So about 10 hours on the bike, all over town. Good practice!

Labels: bmw, medical, moto, pretrip

Kind of a disappointing day, on most fronts.

Heard from the carpet installers, supposedly they would have the carpet
installed by Tuesday or Wednesday. Well, they are going to come out for
the *estimate* on Wednesday, then they will schedule it. So the carpet
probably won't be installed until at least a week from Wednesday.

That's another week the house won't be on the market, another week to
pay for the mortgage, you get the idea. All because of carpet.

Have no clear idea what to do with the piano, either. A friend will come
and pick it up on Wednesday, and the three of us will take it over to
friend 2's house for storage or whatever. Consignment piano shops will
only give about 30% of its value. If I'm going to do that, I may as well
donate it and take the tax savings.

Tamara missed her dentist appointment this morning. That's rescheduled
for Thursday. Thankfully, she was able to get into the endodontist for
an evaluation type appointment. The appointment for the work was
supposed to be at the same time as our travel medicine appointments- but
by the time she got done calling around to reschedule things, the
endodontist had changed their schedule, so Tamara will be going to the
endo right after the travel med appointments.

In another odd coincidence, the AAA office is literally next door to the
travel med clinic. So we'll be able to take care of those quite easily.
That means tomorrow (Tuesday) is chock-full of medical appointments-
family doctor, travel med, then endodontist. If all goes well at the
endodontist, we'll be on track for medical things by the end of this
week. If not.. well, I have no clue.

The painting front is going slow. Tamara had to deal with some packing
at her apartment, the endodontist appointment, and some errands, so no
painting today. She did some of the spackling and texturing over the
signature wall, which is an incredibly daunting task.

So we still have some things worrying us and hanging over our heads:
- Happy Trails luggage. Will it ship this week? When will it arrive in
Seattle?
- Packing. When do we actually pack the daily stuff? When do we get the
moving truck?

There's tons of little stuff, too. Enough that we are delaying the
moving truck, since the idea is to load the moving truck and not come
back to Seattle after it's loaded. At this point, we'll probably do the
loading and going-away celebration in the evening of Thursday the 22nd,
then drive to the beach on Friday and unload.

My mini-laptop will arrive this Thursday, our maps and books will be
here on Wednesday, hopefully Tamara will be done painting by Friday
(since Tuesday and Thursday are eaten up with medical appointments).

-ted

So here's where things stand.

Study room: 100% packed and dejunked, now a staging room for the rest of
the house. (packed boxes are being stored here)

Guest room: packed and dejunked, carpet and closet pack removed for new
carpeting. (closet pack goes back in)

Woodshop: dejunked, 90% packed. Still need to deal with large
(unpackable) items, then the shop will be empty and ready for painting.

Office: 65% packed, even went through a majority of the filing cabinets.

Monday and Tuesday should see the carpet estimate (and hopefully
installation), Tamara has her followup dental appointment, and we have
travel medicine appointments.

Next big things:

• Tamara will continue painting the entryway, downstairs hall, and woodshop. (still need paint for the new french doors)
• Ted will keep packing and dejunking.
• Once carpet is scheduled, we'll schedule the construction dumpster for pickup. It'd be nice to put the car in the driveway, at least :-)
• Once the end is in sight for carpet, paint, and packing, we'll schedule the moving truck. Quite likely we'll be *ready* by the end of the week (16th), but we will probably wait until early the following week, depending on a million things.
• Wandering geek kit should come together- the miniature laptop will get here, I can start packing that kit together.
• Still waiting on the Happy Trails racks. They are supposed to be done next week.

We'll really need help from friends when it comes time to load the moving truck. Things will be well-packed, so it's just a matter of loading. It should only take maybe two hours on a weeknight.

I'm still on withdrawals from an antidepressant. One weird symptom has
passed, but now I'm into the next phase. I suppose that's progress, yeah?

-ted

penske- doesn't have a one-way location near the coast
ryder- doesn't do one-way reservations
budget- $320 24' truck, 2 days, 246 miles
uhaul- $376

It seems like great progress is being made on some fronts, even when
less is being made on others.

The contractor finished the french doors today. They look great, though
they need painting and I think we'll have to redo some of the texturing
on the walls.

I was hoping to work downstairs on the guest room and woodshop but felt
a little crowded with the contractor there. So I worked upstairs- did a
bunch of filing, got the office about 60% packed and completely
dejunked. Got rid of the older filing cabinet, too.

Went to the dentist- aside from two known problems with Tamara's teeth,
both of our mouths are fine. Went to Borders to look for a couple of
books (completely struck out), went to Metsker Maps (found some good
maps), and got my backup eyeglasses on order. It was also a good chance
for us to ride 2-up. The new Wilbers shock is AMAZING. The bike handles
better 2-up with Wilbers than it did on the stock shock while riding
solo. Pretty cool. Oh yeah- remounted my front panniers. I love the
location of them.

Tamara got a bunch of painting done, too. Still a ton to go, but
progress is always good.

So, even though I didn't get the things done that I was hoping, things
are moving along. I'm still hoping the house will be ready for realtor
photos by Wednesday (I'll know more Monday when the carpet is scheduled).

Our builder was at the house this morning, he spent the day wiring, reframing, and generally getting the opening ready to go.

We went and picked up boring colors for painting walls.

Saturday: hopefully door is completely installed and trimmed out. We will then be able to paint so new carpet can be installed on mon-tues.

Ted todo saturday: clean/pack study, destroy bookcases, junk rugs, pack and empty guest room. Bring out anything in there, then I can pull closet door, pack.

Things are moving along. I guess I consider things on track, but it's
hard to tell.

Personal: I've discontinued an antidepressant. It has a couple of weird
side-effects- the main one I'm having is called 'depersonalization'. I
feel like the puppeteer or something- absolutely no connection to life.
I'm sure some of it is due to being laid off and such huge life changes,
but I think the vast majority is from this antidepressant.
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/antidep/a/0207_ssridisc1.htm

Tamara's last day of work was today, she has a bunch of travel medicine
appointments for us for the next week. For instance, final teeth
cleaning and repairs, shots (yellow fever, anyone?), prescriptions for
medications, and spare eyeglass lenses.

Bike: got my Wilbers shock, and got it installed. Took a couple of
hours, a sledge hammer, a large lever (4ft chunk of 2x2), and
head-scratching. I noticed it immediately- I sat down on the seat and it
didn't squish and squat. Wow. It felt low, so I kept adjusting the
preload to compensate. After a quick ride I knew I needed to adjust the
compression, and the rebound was getting really annoying. Well, I found
out I was adjusting the rebound, *not* preload, so I had the rebound
maxed out. Oops.

House: The woodshop is completely bare- everything is off the walls and
ceiling, packed or moved out. We found someone who will work on the
french doors for the downstairs big room. He'll be coming out to start
the work tomorrow (I hope!). He has a helper who is great at drywall
repair, so they will be handling all of the patching. This construction
will define a lot of our schedule- once that is underway, we'll get
carpet scheduled, and can start painting, etc.

The biggest factors, at this point, are as follows:
- get the construction done downstairs, including new paint and carpet.
Once this is done, we can get the realtor photos taken and the house can
be listed.
- finish packing. Once the construction and packing is done, we'll move
it into storage at the coast, the house will be totally empty, and we
will be done in Seattle.
- get the Happy Trails rack for the DL650. This will probably determine
our schedule more than anything, since it is about two weeks out. Can
always have it shipped to somewhere in our trip, or go to Boise for it,
or.. well, I don't know.

Thanks to calling in a favor or two, we have a great storage unit for
all of our stuff, including the bikes, Miata, tools, and all the normal
household things.

The garage and shop are well into disassembly, the garbage dumpster
comes tomorrow, and we have appointments for travel medicine, dental, etc.

So I was laid off from work at the beginning of Febuary 2007. I'd been dreaming about touring the world on my motorcycle for many years, and this has been a fantastic opportunity to set this into motion.

So, it's time to prepare the bike, pack and sell the house, and head out.

Financially, I can afford to be on the road for several years. I don't know if I can handle that mentally- but that's the plan.