Well, I said goodbye to our dog Dutch this morning as we slipped out the door without him getting the sense that I would be gone for the next 7 weeks – I will surely miss him. But, it was a super early morning with 3:45 AM wake-up to catch our 6 AM flight out of MYR. No memorable trip, of course, goes off without a little drama – we were 45 minutes delayed out of MYR due to a maintenance issue and barely made our connection – but amazingly my bags made it on our plane. Now as we make our way across the country by way of ATL, I have to admit that I am a little anxious. Things running through my mind are questions like – “What will our group be like?”, “How will I respond to all of the climbing in the next 9 days?”, “What will the weather be like?”, “Have I forgotten to take anything?” But I just keep reminding myself about all of the training that I’ve done over the last 12 months and I guess I feel better about all of that.
It’s a little daunting flying from MYR and out over the Atlantic Ocean and thinking, “Well, I have to ride a bike over 3800 miles to get back to that body of water”, but then again you just break it down day-by-day and it seems a little easier. So, I’ve resolved to do just that – take one day and one ride at a time and not worry about the day ahead. There are a few of our group getting into Portland today so I hope that we might have the opportunity to meet and get acquainted.
Our rider group will consist of 24 people – 14 men and 10 women. We also have 4 married couples on the trip so I am sure that that will be interesting for them. We have had a WhatsApp chat group going on for a while and everyone, of course, is excited about the trip.
Tomorrow we will have the day to look around Portland and get used to the time change. On Thursday, I will say goodbye to Val and we will all meet up with our guides and depart the hotel soon after 9 AM to shuttle down to Astoria on the coast where we will get our bikes set up and then head out for a short 30 mile ride to dip our back wheels into the Pacific Ocean and back to our hotel in Astoria.
It’s hard for me to believe that the day is finally here, but I am excited and looking forward to the adventure. It won’t be easy and I’m sure parts of it might be miserable – but that’s what makes it all fun in the end.