Well, I only have one full day left. Yesterday I bought a roof rack to mount the bike on top of the car. I still have so many things I wanted to get done before I left that likely will not get done. I need to get the oil changed on the car, and I intended to get the bike tuned up before I left. I wanted to get Stephanie and myself new cell phones, as we have both had our phones for a while (and they have both been dropped more than once). I also wanted a new camera, as the one we bought at Christmas was damaged and our old one is… old.
As for work – I’ve spent all week transitioning my projects to other engineers, but there is much work left undone that I’m pretty certain will become a huge mess by the time I get back. It seems all the projects I have were dragging their feet on timelines until they heard I was leaving for two weeks – now everything is due while I’m gone!
But despite all of that – I’m excited! Tomorrow I plan to hit the road at 4:30am (just before sunrise). I head down to Tempe, then across Mesa, on to Apache Junction. From there it gets rough. I have a long stretch of nothing but busy highway road, then steep climbs up to Superior and on to Miami/Globe. I won’t make it all the way for several reasons – namely its over a 100 miles and the last 40 miles are all climbing in the heat of the day. So, at 2pm no matter where I am on that mountain, Stephanie is picking me up and we drive the rest of the way to Globe. We found a $40 a night hotel the last time we were there that we plan to stay at. The next day is a 90 mile day, with three big climbs but a good amount of descents as well.
This is likely my last post for a few days, but I will keep notes and post when I can. See you on the other side!