I made it!

Well, folks, it’s a beautiful morning here in San Francisco. Yesterday was a full day of travel and settling in, so I’m just now finding time to re-cap the trip over to this side of the country.
Yesterday, Arthur and I woke up at 5:45am. Let me tell you, it wasn’t the prettiest of sights. We were both tired, and neither of us are really morning people. The car was already packed, though, so we got on our way fairly quickly after I loaded up my iPod with some jams (reason number 763 Arthur is a wonderful boyfriend: he has a hard drive with approximately enough music to listen for a week straight without ever hearing the same song twice. And it’s all good music).

We made our way to the jeep and went in search of coffee.

As you can see, we are different creatures entirely when the time of morning can be counted on six fingers and there is no coffee yet.
We got some gas station coffee and breakfast sandwiches, gassed up the jeep, and puttered along to the airport. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch a picture of the beautiful sunrise before we pulled into the parking ramp. My mom and sisters pulled up next to us moments later.
After a lot of goofing around, a little boy spilling his mom’s coffee by the ticketing counter and getting my bags checked, I moseyed toward security and said my goodbyes. Having my mom, two sisters, and Arthur at the airport to see me off was amazing. I went through security without a hitch and waited for my plane feeling blessed and ready. I have an amazing family.
The thing about flying with southwest airlines is that they don’t have assigned seating. Your ticket just says a letter, a-c, and a number, 1-60. They board by groups (a1-15, a16-30, a31-45, etc.), then you go and find a seat. It’s cool to decide who to sit next to, and I got so lucky on both flights. The first leg was from Minneapolis to Denver, where I sat next to Bruce and Terri, who were en route to Tucson.

They were very interested in the trip, and I had a blast talking to them. To make the flight even better, there was a little guy sitting in front of me with his mom, on their way to meet up with dad in Colorado. Marcus was an amazing flier at 15 months old–laughing and drooling and smiling the whole way, terri and I had a blast playing with him.

To top it all off, the weather was gorgeous from high up, and lots of different kinds of clouds could be seen. I particularly enjoyed this lumpy bubbly mass of clouds.

When we landed in Denver, we all wished each other well and went our separate ways. At that point I remembered how boring the Denver airport is! It’s this endlessly long strip with a long moving sidewalk down the middle. I ended up calling my mom, buying a massive taco salad and setting up camp on the sunny side of the street. I then spent an hour watching this:

If you’re wondering what ‘this’ is, it’s planes coming and going, baggage vehicles scooting around, and my solar panel soaking up rays and charging my iPod. I got the iPod to full battery by putting the panel in the windowsill. Amazing device, that solar panel.
After waiting and waiting, I finally got on the plane and settled in next to a girl named Desiree. She was headed back to the west coast after being trapped on the east coast after a work conference. Airport closures due to hurricane Irene made travel very difficult, and she was so ready to get back home.

We talked for most of the flight, and she pointed out the las Vegas strip as we landed to drop off and pick up passengers before continuing to San Francisco. Our new seatmate was named Ben, from Plymouth, England. He had been counseling camp in Maine and was taking a trip with his family. His family was very interested in my trip, and I got to tell them that my boyfriend lived in Norwich. They were impressed at my pronunciation of Norwich. I guess as dumb Americans we don’t have to do much to impress people. 🙂
After landing, Desiree and I waited for bags, took turns watching each others’ stuff, and tried to figure out how the heck I was going to get to my friend’s house with two duffels and a bike box.

I was able to get to the front door by pushing this:

Then a nice man brought me a cart, Desiree left to get her car from San
Jose (but only after triple checking that I’d be ok), and I began waiting…
John, my good friend from high school that I’m staying with here in San Francisco, was busy growing e.coli cells until 6:30, and my flight got in at 3. Not wanting to wait outside his house for two hours or more, I decided the airport was a decent place to stay awhile. I chatted with Franki (sorry, no picture!) who helps big companies use more energy-efficient computers. I think there is more to her job, but this is the gist of it that I caught. She also works with an organization that provides climbing gear to veterans who are amputees. I met so many nice people at the airport.
Unfortunately, the list of nice people does not include cab drivers. Once I was ready to head to John’s, I caught my first taxi ever. The first guy was snappy and threw my bike in his van lying on its side (I dunno if you saw that box, but it has ‘up’ arrows, and ‘do not lay flat’ written all over it). He then snapped, ‘will not fit!’. Clearly.
I found a nicer cab driver with a handicap accessible van, so my bike sat (upright!) in the wheelchair bay. Forty bucks later, I was down the block from John’s house.
After carrying all my stuff up the winding stairs, a glass of water was had, and John and I did a little catching up (by my last count, we haven’t talked since 2006!)

He hasn’t changed, it seems. This is the same way he would have said hi to the camera in high school. He’s now doing a doctoral program in biochemistry (I hope I got that right!) and his summer job involves growing deadly cells that create human protein. Confusing? Yep!
The only thing on my agenda was getting the bike out of its box, so I got to work. What I pulled out looked like Christmas wrapping on steroids. And I knew I had to open this one verrrrrrry carefully.

There was so much bubble wrap and padding and tape and zip ties on that thing, I had no choice. I gleefully pulled out my favorite knife.

Once I had taken all the wrapping off, I got to work with the tools. Putting the pedals on, easy. Putting the seat on, easy. Handlebars, piece of cake. Re-tightening the brake cables, easy. Until one mystery piece and front brake cables that didn’t seem to fit anywhere.

This is when I called Arthur, and told him that I couldn’t figure out how in the world to route brake cables from the front of the handlebars, down behind the fork. He said, ‘behind the fork? What are you talking about?’…at which point I realized I had put the handlebars on backwards, and the whole front wheel was backwards. Easy fix, big whoops.
Putting the bike back together was no sweat, all things considered. I’m missing one bolt, but I’ll track one down today and we’ll be golden.
I fell asleep last night feeling accomplished. After earplugs and a blanket over my eyes, I was able to fall asleep in this noisy, somewhat bright living room (next to both the hospital and the fire station, I can’t be too angry for either), and I woke up at 6am. No worries, though, I woke up looking at this. It’s gonna be a great day.

Almost ready to ride!

I’m hoping to have lots to say soon, but for now, check out the bike!

After a great game of bike part tetris, the mechanics at Erik’s in dinkytown got my bike all packed up. It’s ready to fly! Now I just have to make the rest of it ready to fly.

Tomorrow I’m throwing a send-off potluck/grill-out/bonfire, so if you haven’t already gotten information via Facebook, please get in touch with me! I’d love to see as many people as I can before I fly on Tuesday morning.

Back to work I go!

By the way..

Yeah, by the way, no big deal or anything, the fundraiser just rolled over into the quadruple digits today.

A THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I was super tempted to just type a bunch of keypad-mashing gibberish here, straight out of a 1999 AOL chat room, but I came to my senses. Instead I’m just gonna say it again.

As of 1am, this august the 25th, the abbiacrossamerica fundraiser has raised ONE THOUSAND, THIRTY DOLLARS.

Holy. Moly. I can’t even say in words how cool this is. When the fundraiser hit a hundred dollars I was overjoyed. Is there a word? Super-overjoyed? Anyway, whatever that word is…wow.

On top of that, I received my very first per-mile pledge from the Sand family at church. This brings me a different kind of joy, because it means each mile I ride earns a little bit, and 3500 miles will earn 3500 little bits. Hyper-overjoyed.

With my super-overjoyed-ness, and my different-hyper-overjoyed-ness, I’m pretty much on top of the world.

So. If you’ve ever wanted to see someone literally burst from joy, keep donating.

Thank you. So much.

Less than..

Less than a week left before I depart for San Francisco! The to-do list is smaller than it was a month ago by far, but it’s got a lot of big, time-sensitive things on it.
For example, I need to be moved out of the room I’ve been living in, so my friend Mischa can start moving in. The blessing in this is that he needs all my furniture. With my stuff alone, though, the act of packing and storing seems an insurmountable task. As I’ve stressed previously, I’ve probably got one of the best bunches of friends a girl can ask for, though.
My friend Kristen, a fellow camp counselor at LYFE camp –where I have in my four years of counseling formed lasting friendships (go to camp! send your kids to camp! even if it’s just a week!)–has graciously offered me some storage space. So yesterday before work we put these away.

We also met the neighbor (hey, Carl!) and had a nice chat on the side stoop.
It felt great to get those eleven boxes to a secure place, and not burden my mom with all of my stuff. Big shout out to Kristen!
Work really took it out of me yesterday, so I was in no mood to pack at 1am. Instead I went to Arthur’s and we watched a movie called Don’t Be a Menace… There’s more to the title, but I can’t remember it. Pretty dang funny, but by the time Netflix froze for the tenth time with fifteen minutes of movie left, it was time for sleep (BOO, NETFLIX).
In the morning I had an adventure with a big, nasty, pointy-butted, hairy spider in my jeep–I’ll spare you imagery–while trying to put a colossal bike in the back.

Meet the Surly Pugsley. This behemoth has tires like those on a small motorcycle, and after borrowing it to get home last night and an overly exhausting ride home, Arthur more than jumped at my offer to drive it (and him) to work this morning. So I grabbed this huge spider while opening the back of the jeep… Let’s just say I wasn’t super interested and we gently flung it away from the jeep at a high velocity on a stick.
Today I didn’t work, so I spent time packing, and ordered a double kickstand–all the way across the sky! (okay, nobody at the shop really thought that was funny, so I have no earthly idea why I thought you, dear reader, would be amused. Disregard.) The kickstand basically puts me solidly at baller status. As in, my bike won’t fall over, even fully loaded.
I hope.
My mom and big sister came to visit, and then my mom stuck around to help me with the move-out effort. If you’ve ever moved out of anywhere, you’ll probably agree that having a mom to chat with while packing is awesome. She also entertained the cat.

Okay, fine. I put the hat on Merlin. He looks good, and was happy not to be wearing a cone.
So anyway, in short, I’m still scrambling to get everything done. It seems like I pack and then my things expand, so I’ll never actually finish.

But hey. Notice the near-empty closets. They both used to be near-full. Also, hey. Don’t notice the fact that there is stuff literally everywhere but the closets. Totally beside the point.
So here’s the deal. I’m freaking out, but I also have complete faith that it’s going to be fine. That’s right, it’s all going to be great. It can’t be anything but fine.
I have a wonderful and patient boyfriend. My mom and sisters and aunties and uncles and grandma are the best and most supportive family. My church stands behind me. My friends are all amazing. No big deal or anything, but I have no choice but to succeed.
So, with that, I’ll leave you a shot of my roommate Kendra looking totally hot before the Adele concert.

Yeah, I know. I’m lucky.

Hindsight

Today finds me with a long to-do list. I still have a lot to pack, panniers to seal, and reflective material to sew. In hindsight, I probably should have done this before assembling the panniers, but I wasn’t sure if the reflective material was even going to show up.
It would have been nice to put it on BEFORE having to put the sewing machine *inside* the panniers, though.

It’s definitely not fun using a sewing machine like an off-road vehicle.

In other news…
No seriously, in news…
My long-time church mentor, musical buddy and friend Marlys has been trying desperately to contact me about an opportunity through a local news station.
To do a live interview.
At the state fair.

Ho-ly buckets, guys. The thought of being on the news makes me SO hopeful for this fundraiser. Thanks to the generous people who have contributed, we are already over 700 dollars raised for Avenues. I’m extremely grateful for the donations this thing has gotten so far, and I can’t believe my bike trip could be on the news! I’m going to leave out the paragraphs explaining how I’m probably more nervous for one little thing like an interview than I am nervous for this whole trip, and focus on how COMPLETELY AMAZING my church ‘family’, Minneapolis ‘family’, and my real family are for helping me prepare for this journey, and for donating to the cause.
I have to jump right back into the whirlwind that is eleven-days-before-departure, but know that as I work, I am thinking so many good thoughts about everything this trip means.

So in short, if you’re reading this, thank you.

all good things

It has been a fairly eventful week. With the closing shift at Starbucks, though, it’s hard not to sleep in, and waking up at noon when you work at 4 is a sure-fire way to make any activity before work feel like an event.
Today I decided to ignore my hibernation instincts, though, and woke up early. After working until 1am and falling asleep around 2:30, I slept, dreamt, and woke up a little over five hours later.
Normally, I would hear a 7:45am alarm and hit the snooze until goodness knows when. This morning was easy for two reasons. One will make sense, and the other will seem like utter nonsense.
Sense: I put my phone on the other side of the room. It tends to sleep next to my head for easy snooze-button access. This morning I meant business, though, so I actually had to get out of bed, stand up, and walk across the room. The five seconds between throwing the covers off and looking at my phone helped me not get back in bed.
Nonsense: the other night Arthur showed me a trick to help set my internal alarm clock. First, I said to myself that I was going to wake up at 7:45 a few times. Then, and this is the part I thought was a little silly, I bonked my head back against the pillow seven times..and then 3/4 of the way for the :45. Totally goofy, right?
Yet when I got out of bed, I felt awake. I didn’t have the urge to hide from the world and go back to sleep. There’s something to be said about the power of the subconscious! I was out the door by 8:10, had a brisk bike ride out to the suburbs, and went to church with my mom.
At church, the pastor called me to the front of the congregation and gave me the microphone. I was given an opportunity to explain my ride and how people could donate to Avenues.
After the service, a lot of folks approached me to voice their support and, of course, their concerns. Where will you sleep? A tent. What will you eat? Food. Okay, I wasn’t that short or snarky, and talked about various things like peanut butter and tuna and macaroni and tortillas, and then each person got to their most pressing question.
I heard you’re going…alone?
Yep.
The biggest reason for this is that I simply couldn’t find any friends interested in riding bicycles across the country for up to three months. I guess it’s really not even that–there are plenty of people who wanted to go, but the reality of taking three months off of work, subleasing apartments or paying rent, and camping out is pretty daunting, if not nearly impossible for most people. It has taken a lot of planning and luck on my part to make this trip happen.
I would love if Arthur came with me. The idea of riding for three months with another bike enthusiast who enjoys my presence as much as I enjoy his is great, but he has job security this winter, which is exciting. Bike shops don’t normally keep all their employees during the winter in this climate, so the fact that he has work is downright awesome.
In addition to that, he is very adamant that this is MY adventure.
As much as I want us to experience America as a duo, both for proof-that-it-actually-happened in ridiculous situations and simply the companionship aspect of it, I understand where he’s coming from. The last time I had a life-changing solo adventure was in the summer of 2008, when I went into the boundary waters for a few days by myself. Having participated in, and then co-led, the Excelsior United Methodist high school youth trip for a combined nine-ish years, I enjoy time in the wilderness and being self-sufficient.
Going on my own held the same challenges as leading a group, but in a lot of different ways. I had to portage a canoe and all my food and gear every time I wanted to go somewhere. I had to prepare my food and wash my dishes. I did everything alone-there were no campfire conversations or helpers to set up or tear down camp.
This trip was a big learning and growing experience. I realized that I CAN do it myself. In addition, I spent a lot of time noticing my surroundings in a new way, a lot of time in my own head.
This trip allows me those same opportunities. Instead of a canoe, though, it’s a bike. Instead of a few days, it’s a few months. I will still have my iPhone, which means important people are a phone call or a Skype call away. But through several states and hundreds of meals and many bedtimes, I will enjoy my own company.
This is a hurdle for me. I love to talk. I love the company of a good friend or two. Sleeping alone is normally ok, but it’ll be daunting to do so in a tent someplace in some state.
However nervous I get, though, I’m trying not to lose too much sleep, and overall I’m pretty dang excited.
The panniers need only a little seam sealing and some finishing, and they’ll be ready to go.
Hopefully by the time they’re on the bike for good, I’ll be ready, too.

T-minus 21 days!

With a flight booked, I’m finding myself motivated (perhaps slightly frightened) by the amount of time I have until San Francisco. As of today, I fly out in exactly three weeks. This means I have three weeks to pack my apartment, get boxes, the jeep and my other bikes into storage, and have myself fully outfitted to carry my home on a bicycle for three months.
Luckily, I have an amazing group of people in my life–Arthur is taking care of my cannondale road bike, and has great plans to make it awesome. So far he has put new handlebars and wheels and goodness knows what else on it, and it’s getting a whole lot of love (and some miles) from him.
As for the Sputnik, my fixed-gear orange bike, I still haven’t found it a home.
My landlord is being gracious enough to let me store a few boxes in the basement of my Minneapolis house. After over three years of renting from him, I’ll be a little sad to have my friend Mischa take over my room, but with Mischa needing a bed, desk and dresser, I won’t need to worry about moving the heavy stuff.
The rest of my boxes will probably go into storage with my mom, whose ability to store things for me, both willingly and simply because I still have a lot of crap at the house I grew up in (sorry, mom! I promise someday I’ll get everything gone) is astounding.
I’m still not exactly sure what my jeep will be up to while I’m gone, but I have this sneaking suspicion it might carry Arthur to work or play some cold, blustery autumn day.
All this storage talk is boring, though. What I really wanted to talk about is the PANNIERS!
I now have four. I didn’t have time before my nutso Ramadan shift at work to take a decent picture, and there’s still a bit of finishing work, but as it stands, I have four panniers that hold stuff and attach to the bike!

Gotta get back to the grind (coffee, that is), but expect a picture ASAP!

New news!

I have a ton of updating to do. For one, after calling Seattle Fabrics, we discovered that the reflective fabric, cordura and seam sealer I had ordered at the end of June got lost in the mail. The guy I talked to was extremely proactive and sent out a new package the same day. Finally, over a month later, it’s here! SAFETY!

Let me tell you, this stuff is super visible! That photo was taken with flash in broad daylight–the material is so reflective it outshines everything else in the room. I also added some handy webbing for my tail lights.

All this on the back end means people will be able to better see me in low-visibility or night riding conditions. I don’t intend to do much riding in the dark, but I want to have the option and be super extra safe.

In other news, a flight is booked! I’ll be flying to San Francisco on august 30th. My good friend from high school, John, is at UCSF for grad school, so I think I’ll have a couch to crash on before I set out to see the country.
The flight is with southwest airlines, who will fly a bike for 50 bucks! That’s a steal, considering that it’s now standard to see airlines charging over a hundred dollars for oversized bags.
Arthur offered to have the guys at the bike shop get my bike all packed up in a box, so I’m feeling like things are falling into place.
Today I’m trying to crank out as much of the last pannier as I can.

As for fundraising, I’m sort of at a standstill, after a wonderful string of donations, including one from my longest-time-ever friend Diana. We have known each other since sixth grade, and I am blessed to have her support on this endeavor.
All this said, if you’re reading this blog, spread the word! I’d love to raise as much money as possible for Avenues. They are an amazing organization, doing amazing things.

Until next time!