Pre-Trip Anxiety

I wrote this one on 8/14, two days before my first camping ride up to the Sam Houston forest.  It reminded me of what the last two days before the renaissance festival used to be like.

===

Two days away from first camping ride.

Holy. Shit.

The BAD

How can one person need so much shit to be comfortable for one fucking night.  I have filled both saddlebags and two 40 liter drybags and I still haven’t packed water yet.

No to mention that the drybags will be strapped to the passenger seat like a dead deer.  Is this safe?  Will these damn things shift during the ride?  If I hit the brakes will I be hit in the back of the head with 40 lbs worth of drybag at 50 mph?

Oh shit.  Where the hell is the fishing rod box going to go?

I only have one evening left to engineer and test all of this.  How did I run so low on time?

I haven’t even mounted the goddamn phone to the handlebars yet.  Will that even work?  Just got off the phone with my headset manufacturer and they had exactly dick in the way of help for my volume problem.

I haven’t tested the saddlebags with this much weight.  Will they even hold?  The right one moves around a lot.  I wish I had time to stabilize it a little more.

I’ve pulled too much time away from the family already just by eking 10 minutes here 10 minutes there.  Not to mention that I’m going to be gone for a whole evening simply because “Daddy is working on something”.  I feel really shitty about it.  Am I going to be guilt ridden the whole night to the point where I won’t even enjoy myself?

Just like always, I tried to do everything in the first fucking go round. Dammit.  Being at work sucks right now.  I just want to go home and get started with the prep.  I need to be doing something!!!!

The NEUTRAL

I’ll have some time when I get home tonight to figure out the last few details.  I have done a tremendous amount of shopping, planning and engineering in just a few weeks.

The GOOD:

Everything from my camping list is actually on the bike. This has gone from a learning ride to a “dry run with all the gear” ride.  I could literally stay gone for several days with the gear I have on hand.  That means I’ll probably have to buy very little for the big trip next year.  I might add a sissy bar bag for more food and water though.

It all looks fairly professional.  The drybags stack pretty high but I have a plan for tying them down well. 

This looks like a good fishing lake too.  I’m pretty sure I’ll catch (and release) some blue gill or catfish at least.

All of this bodes very well for the Gulf ride.