Pre flight-to-Europe update

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Metaphorically, my steps in life are hurdling in lightning quick leaps and bounds like the great sprinter Carl Lewis, towards a finish line I can’t quite comprehend yet. The stress of packing your worldly possessions for 5 months, begging your mom to watch your demonic cat, planning a very long Europe bicycle trip, and oh yeah, get married, can kind of numb you to the excitement you should be feeling. I’m sure you think “Seriously Mel? You ungrateful hag”. As a result of all the above mentioned hoopla, I and my attached brain, have been full of a lot of static....

So here’s the update. As of March 18th, we are now ninja partners against the world. We enjoyed a very tiny civil ceremony on a pier in San Francisco; we’re talking parents, and a witness. His good friend,ordained in the Church of the Latter Day Dude (Big Lebowski fans rejoice), happily married us in a simple 10min “do you?”, “do you?”-BAM- “kiss” sort of gig. There was joy, there was tears, there was no seagulls using us as target practice. It was simple. It was perfect.

As of today, all of our stuff, minus what little we could stuff into bike bags for the next 5 months, is in storage at Greg’s gracious mother’s house . As mentioned above, my bi-polar demonic cat was driven down in our 64 bug to Riverside (a lovely 10 hour slow drive) to stay with my mother. The task of sorting, packing, and disposing of stuff, a mere few days after our union, was in short, crappy. But it’s done, and we now have the next 3 days to do nothing, and I mean sit-on-my-ass-in-front-of-the-tv-with-beers nothing. We are both breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Difficult decisions of what to carry around Europe and what to put in storage

This unassuming little shed now holds our pirate's booty

It helps that we don't have big kid things like a couch or dining table...but the 6 bikes between us might seem a bit excessive to some

For the most part, we are ready to go. I don’t think I’ve fully grasped the extent of how many miles my undercarriage will end up making sweet love to that bike saddle; we’re thinking 2,500+. The excitement hasn’t quite hit me yet (due to all the activity), and I don’t think it will until the day we’re leaving. I am quite surprised in myself to say I don’t feel scared riding into the unknown. My biggest fear thus far is hoping my body will hold up.