The last time I was at this testing facility was 2007 or so. I drove up, they stuck a probe in the tailpipe, they gave me the results immediately, and I was on my merry way. Thankfully, it's no longer an auto emissions station. As a COVID test site, I'm relieved that the process has changed somewhat. The probe goes in the nostrils, and I have to wait a while for the results.

I feel like a comedian could have set that joke up much better, but hey, I did my best. Anyway, there was no guarantee we would get our results on time, but sure enough, I awoke this morning to texts saying that they were ready. Drum roll, please... negative! Whew. I downloaded the results, printed them out, and then uploaded them to the Korean government. We immediately got our "Q Codes" that are supposed to make entry into Korea quarantine-free. A lot has changed in the last month, so I still don't expect everything to go completely smoothly, but we've done our due diligence. The last thing we want is to be stuck in quarantine because we forgot to check a box somewhere.

We entertained ourselves last night watching YouTube videos of fearless cyclists who traversed the 국토종주 (cross-country path) and the 동해안 자전거길 (East Coast path) during various times of the year. One guy rode from Busan to Seoul during the winter, camping about half the nights. I couldn't understand everything he said, but outbursts of "아이 추워라" ("boy, it's cold!") dominated the narration.

We, on the other hand, expect to have lovely weather for our journey, basically between 10C (50F) and 21C (70F) until we reach Busan. However, they're predicting a storm to come through the evening of our arrival, dumping rain overnight and into the next day. We'll probably hole up in a motel rather than camp. Depending on the weather and how we feel, we may even delay the start of our tour by a day to let the storm pass through. I'd rather not, because we're riding on a pretty tight schedule as it is.

I'm fighting the urge to develop a matrix of backup plans for every imaginable scenario. We'll improvise when necessary. It's not like we're headed into the outback.