364 Days to Go

It's a dreary Friday and I have the day off. A friend of mine is picking me up in her Scout truck camper and we're driving to a concert at The Gorge. I'm excited to see the venue that hosted Lilith Fair—it's my first time.

Our plans to visit Rainier were foiled by rain and potential snow. We want to be cooked in the sun, not frozen overnight. I had enough freezing last weekend when we camped at 6,000 feet and pushed our bikes (uphill) through four miles of thick snow. Apparently there were black bear tracks through the white fluff, but I must've scared them away with the profanity and motivational AC/DC blaring from my phone.

A year to go. I feel like the clock officially started yesterday. With the hourglass turned on its head, it's time to commit to a weekly, if not daily, ritual of writing it all down. It's important to me to savor the "waiting period" so that the feeling of living in suspense fades each day.

For the first two years of wishing for and planning on this trip, it felt like the Great Escape. The yearlong preparation is not nearly enough to pass the time—I've needed to build out a real life that I can walk away from. I've experimented with running, reading, gravel biking, making human friends (as opposed to puppy pals) and playing with LLMs.

I hope to source Spanish lessons and have more bikepacking adventures this summer. I also plan to regularly write here and see how this practice evolves. I've heard that when one begins writing, the first wave of words and pieces is, in retrospect, mediocre. It's like the layer of topsoil you must dig through to get to the rich, nutrient-dense earth when planting a garden. I'd like to believe that in a year's time I will have a blossoming garden. Hope and a little dedication to this site are a great start!

Current Reading Material: