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Two steps forward, one step back…that pretty well sums up how I feel about my progress.  And it seems to apply to almost every aspect of this.  Consider the following…

I was planning on leaving for Washington state right after my last Warmshowers guest departed on March 17th.  However, Rosa needs me to stick around until the 19th which delays my departure till the 20th.

I still plan on getting back to Vegas around the 11th of April.  That gives me time to sell off a few remaining large items in the house, and get ready for the community garage sale on the 14th.  There’s always a large turnout for this and I hope to sell off lots of the smaller items.  Whatever doesn’t sell will be donated, cause it’s time to go damnit!

My bike/gear is still a work in progress.  I made a rather large couple of orders via Amazon, along with other various suppliers and most things have worked out fairly well…except for one of Amazon’s vendors…Bikesomewhere.com.  I ordered the Schwalbe Mondails (tires) from them.  They were supposed to have been shipped and arrive by the 6th.  Unfortunately I get an email on the 6th telling me they just shipped!  From Florida!  Using standard mail!  WTF?  I call…left a message.  I email and the following day get a reply that the order has shipped.  I respond that I was expecting them to have already arrived and again…they say “they shipped”…..aghhhh!  Their last reply was, “will an explanation make them arrive any sooner?”  My response?  “No, but it might have made a difference regarding the negative feedback I’ll be leaving regarding your lack of customer service”.  In this day of internet commerce I find bad customer service to be completely unacceptable.  I get the fact that things happen, but show some understanding.  I believe I did, but didn’t get it in return…..ah well.  I’m sure I’d better get used to this type of frustration when we begin trekking south of the border.The reason the tires are important….I still have to mount fenders and really don’t want to commit to a set until how I see they behave with my tires.

Good news though…my bike mechanic/teacher/friend Brett Marshall came over the other day and helped me install my ESI silicon grips.  I custom ordered these from ESI last week.  They were curious to see how we would handle getting these 20″ long babies to slide along the various curves of my trekking handlebars….well, it took us over 15 minutes of serious twisting and pulling to get them on, but we did it.  They look and feel pretty good, but I still need to take it for a spin before I’ll know for sure.

I installed a Minoura Spacegrip 3.  This is a ‘T’ shaped bar that clamps to my handlebar.  It gives a bit of extra space to hang a couple gadgets from…namely my Garmin and Spokegrenade headlight.  Speaking of which….damn that thing is bright!

At this point I should probably mention that I’m still torn between bikes.  The Soma frame is clearly a superior frame, but the Schwinn is a bit taller…perhaps more comfortable?  We’ll see.

It took me a while to come to grips with the idea of writing this blog.  And although this journey is decidedly a selfish act, it would be nothing compared to the selfishness I would feel not writing about it…after all, I’ve learned a great deal about bicycle touring from reading what others have written.

I decided upon brokenspoken.com and am glad I did.  I think it conveys both the potential of the bicycle adventure as well as my fairly poor grasp of the Spanish language.  I hope you’ll enjoy the time you take to look through this.

At this point it seems I’ll have a traveling companion; Dominic Luther.  Dom is from Great Britain.  He started bicycling in May with his sister Charlotte.  They began in Florida and made a big counterclockwise loop around the country.  I was fortunate enough to have hosted them as they came through Las Vegas.  Charlotte has broken off on her own set of adventures leaving Dom to his own devices.  He has chosen to continue his journey and has decided I’d make decent company…poor bastard!

The plan is to leave the U.S. at Tijuana, head south through Baja and cross to the mainland.  Left to my own I’d criss-cross a lot of central Mexico, but I’m not sure how this might change.  I hope to visit each country in Central/South America…I mean, why bother going if you’re going to puss out when it comes to traveling an extra few thousand miles (perhaps it helps to imagine the decision to bicycle to each state here in the U.S.)?

Timing…it’s all in the timing.  I started really considering this back in my 40’s but the timing wasn’t right…married, working, kids too young.  The one constant in life…change, has made it where the timing is right for me.

So the time has come to divest myself of, well, myself.  Not sure about others, but this has proven to be a bigger obstacle than I anticipated.   50 years of living has proven me to be more like my Father than I imagined.  It seems I have his trait of having multiple items of everything.  This means I have stuff…lots of stuff to get rid of.  Until I started this process I didn’t realize how much my stuff owned me instead of the other way around.  It’s been very liberating to start letting go.  It’s also been more difficult than you might imagine.  Sure, Craigslist and Ebay work, but it’s amazing how much effort is involved in selling off all this at a loss (see what I mean about stuff owning you?).  Its taken some time to get my arms around the whole mental process of letting go.

Rosa, my wonderful girlfriend, has just bought a condo and a lot of items have gone to her to help furnish her place.  My friend Paul is going to rent out my house.  I know it will be in good hands as he is the epitome of reliable.  A few things will stay with the house.  But that still leaves a lot of stuff to get rid of.  I’ll sell what I can, give away to those who can use and donate the rest.

My Sons; Ryan and Aaron, are both supportive of my adventure and somewhat understand I think.  My Mom and Brothers…well they’ve come to expect the unusual behavior from me.

“To want is to suffer” I believe is a Buddhist concept.  It does seem fitting.