One of our marital in-jokes is "Vibes."

It's Joy's sometimes-exasperated shorthand commentary on my unwillingness and/or inability to plan much of anything anymore. The joke is that virtually everything I do is based on the "vibes" that I feel in the moment.

I'm sure it's frustrating at times for an inveterate planner like my wife to be married to somebody who can't seem to plan anything. In my defense, buying a plane ticket months in advance for this tour and arranging to ship my bike across the country to the starting point was not "vibes"-based. It went against every fiber of my being to do it, but I felt like I needed to do something to jolt me out of my usual bike touring routine, which has involved me starting tours from our driveway. I wanted to start off this time with very different scenery.

But that's as much planning as I can tolerate. The tour itself, other than a vague idea of starting at the Pacific and heading (mostly) east will certainly be mostly "vibes."