In no particular order and with no sense of singular purpose,
here is what’s going on.
Reservations. Did you
catch that? Reservations. Every day of this last week and running
through my head all the time. Book the hotels.
Book the flights. Book the bike
trailer for the return trip. Book
parking at the Miami airport for the truck and trailer so they are waiting
patiently when J drags the children off the plane. Oh, and book the state parks too…and the
Disney portion.
For this trip, there are 17 nights worth of lodging, 4
flights, one trailer and one long term parking spot. I figure I’m about 1/3 the way booked for the
trip. The research on all these places
is done. Now I just need to book them
all. It’s going to take a couple of
weeks.
There is also some mental pressure going on here. There is only 3 months left and booking things makes the trip real…or realer
than it was when it was all in spreadsheet.
So yeah, reservations.
Bike Tech. Since the
last ride, the bike has been upgraded in the following ways:
- Sheepskin seat cover (looks pimp but that’s not the point)
- Windshield the size of a screen door (does not look pimp but is quickly removable with quick release mounting hardware-take 5 seconds to pull off the whole thing)
- Plexiglass hand protectors for each hand
- Bigger drybag so packing up won’t take 3 hours (its black and awfully fashionable)
Essentially, every aspect of the bike has changed. I rode it the other night. It was too damn cold to spend much time at
highway speed but it felt completely different.
Better wind protection on the shoulders and head but a ton of wind now
on the legs. The bike is also a little squirrelly
but I think that has more to do with my tension than actual performance.
Still, I need to log some time above 70 to test all this
out. If there are delays on the trip, I
may have to do long sessions above 70 MPH to get back on track…or else I might
lose one of the 503 reservations noted above.
Documentation. How to
tell the story? This blog has a small,
yet very distinguished readership. I
doubt very seriously that any media I put on it will lead to an Oprah interview
(hopefully), but maybe in 20 years the kids will want to understand what I was
thinking. Or see how we really dressed. Or see how Dad looked before his face turned into dried leather (relatively speaking of course).
Here is what I decided:
- Daily video report to the J and the kids: I’ll just video myself talking about the day and how much I miss them. I’ll edit in some pics from that day’s ride. I’ll end each video with a fun fact about Disney and picture of one of the parks. This should get them good and excited for that trip.
- Daily Blogposts: These will be in roughly the same format as the last ride report. I promise less text and more pictures. Unless I have something terribly witty, insightful or profane to say.
- Daily Video Diary: Just a stream-of-consciousness recording for a couple of minutes a day. This is mainly for the kids to watch when they get older. Not sure if it will make it to the blog or not. I just don’t think it will be all that compelling.
- I have some other ideas but I want to hold off on those for now.
Videos huh? Crap. That means I need to look into a laptop to
take on the trip…but that’s okay because I can use it to update….Reservations.
No comments:
Post a Comment