The fundamental problem with solo travel
I meant to leave Thursday afternoon for my Inaugural Proof of Concept Orcas Island Pre-World Tour Bike Camping trip. Later, I meant to leave Friday morning. Then Saturday morning. Now it's Saturday afternoon, and I have dinner plans. So the current plan is to leave tomorrow morning. Having a plane to catch and a traveling companion's wrath to avoid makes departures much more straightforward.
This trip was going to be a week long, riding from my house up Whidbey Island to Anacortes, then taking a ferry to one island after another, and riding back home down Whidbey again. For months I've been acquiring gear, reading bike touring memoirs and blogs, and finding out that really everybody knows somebody who's done bike touring. I've been ramping up to take off on this IP of COIPWTBC trip for months, clearing my calendar, making sure all the ducks are in a row. And riding my bike? A bit.
Now the trip will be at most two and a half days, because I have to be back Tuesday. I'd feel like a chump, but a couple things happened while I was procrastinating. First, a big med school drama (affecting somebody else) went down on Friday, and that's a don't miss. Second, just now at REI, I ran into my school buddy Josh, who I worked with at Harborview for a long time, and whose family I'd heard everything about but had yet to meet until today. That's a don't miss. Josh has been a huge inspiration to me with his humor-filled professionalism and dedication to detail, and it would have sucked to leave Seattle without any contact.
Meanwhile, I have my bike all tricked out with racks and panniers and horns, and I've practiced getting my tent set up while Eunice laughs at me, and I've practiced starting my insanely cool MSR stove, and I have my ubiquitous well-formatted spreadsheet of what all I need to bring and which pannier it goes in. I really need to finish getting ready to go this afternoon, so that I can get an early start tomorrow. Hmm, I think I'll go sit in the lovely new sun for a bit...
This trip was going to be a week long, riding from my house up Whidbey Island to Anacortes, then taking a ferry to one island after another, and riding back home down Whidbey again. For months I've been acquiring gear, reading bike touring memoirs and blogs, and finding out that really everybody knows somebody who's done bike touring. I've been ramping up to take off on this IP of COIPWTBC trip for months, clearing my calendar, making sure all the ducks are in a row. And riding my bike? A bit.
Now the trip will be at most two and a half days, because I have to be back Tuesday. I'd feel like a chump, but a couple things happened while I was procrastinating. First, a big med school drama (affecting somebody else) went down on Friday, and that's a don't miss. Second, just now at REI, I ran into my school buddy Josh, who I worked with at Harborview for a long time, and whose family I'd heard everything about but had yet to meet until today. That's a don't miss. Josh has been a huge inspiration to me with his humor-filled professionalism and dedication to detail, and it would have sucked to leave Seattle without any contact.
Meanwhile, I have my bike all tricked out with racks and panniers and horns, and I've practiced getting my tent set up while Eunice laughs at me, and I've practiced starting my insanely cool MSR stove, and I have my ubiquitous well-formatted spreadsheet of what all I need to bring and which pannier it goes in. I really need to finish getting ready to go this afternoon, so that I can get an early start tomorrow. Hmm, I think I'll go sit in the lovely new sun for a bit...
posted by Cy at 4:06 PM
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