Dear little friends,

Almost as high as the stacks of gear piling up on the guest bed, are the stacks of little notes piling up on the desks and end tables of our shared office. Each one has the stink of urgency and many of them are completely baffling. Here is a slip with the shipping details for the tent and rain fly sent back to the company who will presumably do something about the slight gumminess that has appeared on both of them. Don't lose that until they are back in our hot little hands, either fixed or replaced. Will they be replaced with the Hot New Version which is screaming red 'n white instead of stealthy green? That would really suck! These are the sorts of details plaguing me at present. UPDATE: They returned the tent, apparently not gummy enough for treatment/replacement. Oh well.

One of the things I hoped to retire from is the excess of details that you need in a typical working day for anybody. Planning a trip has become my job, and I enjoy it and enjoy the anticipation but jeez, already. I can hardly wait to just get on the plane and rest my head and lift off away from all these details. A former librarian will always secretly enjoy the meticulous planning and deconstruction thereof. Like neatly shelved Dr. Seuss books decimated by that one second grade class, I am waiting for disembarkation and chaos to return to my life, and that happens as you enter the tunnel leading from the plane to the terminal gate. In that little accordion bardo you pass through a wall of heat and the smell of this new place, and it hits you, "I'm really here."

The preparation for this trip, because it’s our first bike trip and all, is nothing short of epic. It seems to have been going on for years, and in fact it has been going on for years. First we had to decide on bikes. We bought two used Bike Friday Companions, and we like them a lot except that they are both blue so I feel a little bit like those couples who square dance with matching outfits, the woman in a red-and-yellow plaid flouncy dress and the man in his matching western shirt and a bolo tie. We had to get different colored panniers just to keep us feeling somewhat individualistic.

So pre-packing for a bike trip when you've never actually TAKEN a bike trip before has perhaps been overthought a little. There are some other things to think about too. Voting. Property taxes. House insurance for the rental. A house sitter. Cat instructions for the house sitter. House instructions for the cat sitter. Learning how to journal online. On an iPad. How do I turn on this iPad again? You'd never know I used to be a computer technology assistant as well as a librarian.

Our guardian mechanic at Joe Bike here in Portland, Chris, used to work at Bike Friday in Eugene, OR, where our folders were made. He has helped us (for far too little compensation) get our bikes ready for the road. With a high degree of cleverity he did some kind of sleight-of-hand magic and turned an old wire bead tire into a folded tire. He insists we bring a spare tire, how did he know about the roads in Myanmar? We hadn't even told him about the ladies breaking up rocks into gravel by the roadsides, with 50-gallon barrels of tar bubbling away over an open fire. Mix the baby gravel in your hands and press it into the potholes and now you have a Burmese road! So, yeah. Spare tire.

I think I’ll spare you more details of bike stuff and gear stuff and all that other stuff. Absolutely we will take too much stuff, why would we be any different than other newbies?

Heart

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