I CLOSED THE PREVIOUS ENTRY with this statement:

Assuming all stays as it is, my departure date is next Tuesday, after a service appointment scheduled for the morning.

That turns out to have been a poor assumption.

Within hours of the time yesterday that I finished booking campsites at the various State Parks that are to be my daily destinations, my lady wife asked whether I could delay my departure until Wednesday morning rather than the originally-planned Tuesday afternoon, so that I could attend a play with her on Tuesday night.  

It's a play neither of us is especially excited about, and in fact we wouldn't be going at all had we been obliged to pay full price for tickets.  As it happens, though, there were discounted seats available but none of the usual suspects is able to use the spare so I've been pressed into service to fill the seat.

I wasn't excited about having to try to reschedule the already-made bookings.  For one thing, each change incurs an additional service charge.  For another, the changes cannot be made online so I'd have had to call each park individually and go through the process over the phone.  Not a huge deal but one I'd prefer to avoid.  Third, I know that at least one of the sites I had selected is not available the following night; others at the campground may be, but that one isn't.  Finally, moving the entire trip a day to the right on the calendar would put me into trying to find an available campsite on a weekend (Saturday) night; such things are rare indeed with the end of summer looming just two weeks off.

After a few moments' consideration I've come up with an alternate plan.  I'll abandon the first day's and night's ride and stay, electing instead to drive a few miles on Wednesday morning and start from my favorite local independent bike shop.  I'll leave my car there until Saturday afternoon when I planned to be passing by that same spot anyhow.

The happy news is that I had not booked the campsite at my planned first night's destination.  After looking at the campground website and noting dozens of vacancies, it seemed there was no real point or advantage to claiming one ahead of my arrival.  

Also, the online reservation system is configured such that a minimum of two consecutive nights are required to make a booking; if you want only one night you have to call the campground office and book over the phone, or do it in person on arrival.  Since there were many sites available I hadn't bothered with making the call, figuring it could be easily seen to once I was actually on-site.

My revised route is shorter by a quarter of the distance and involves almost 3,000 fewer feet of climbing, but overall it's still "a bit lumpy" as a Brit once described the very hilly terrain near his home.  As such it is somewhat less ambitious which may not be a bad thing in and of itself, though it does also reduce the training value which is the primary raison d'etre for the undertaking.

So, that's the new plan.