“Everything I do surrounds these pieces of my life that often change”

Some of you teachers and students out there (those who still get a summer break, anyway!) will know exactly what I’m talking about right now when I mention that feeling you have as you get down to just a couple of days standing between you and a few blissful months of freedom.  It gets WAY more difficult to pull yourself out of bed and get ready for real life in the mornings, harder to focus on what you should actually be doing versus thinking about your summer plans, and is just generally an exciting time.

Highways - something we won't see much of this summer!

That’s pretty much how we’ve been feeling lately…we’re deep into that transition period where your thoughts and energy are both directed toward the future, while you have to continually struggle to stay in the moment at work and other life responsibilities.  We’ve both been actively handing off our responsibilities at work, and training colleagues to take over projects that we are working on.  I (Erica) am also transitioning my responsibilities as Treasurer of a professional organization to our incoming Treasurer, so that he can at least stay afloat while I’m gone over the summer!

In the meantime at home, we’ve been packing gear and making lists of last minute items we need to pick up.  We’ve been cleaning house to prepare for my brother to come and watch the pups, cats, and house for the summer (thanks Ryan!).  We’ve been working on the ever-growing list of things to do/note about how exactly to care for the dogs, cats, and house.  It is amazing to think of all the small things that you do out of habit on a regular basis, that clearly won’t be second-nature to anyone else walking in and taking over your responsibilities (both at home, and at work!).  For a control freak like me, it’s going to be hard to let go and not worry that things aren’t going smoothly at home, but I’m sure I’ll find plenty of things to control while we’re out on the road!

 Any remaining training rides around home will no longer be on unloaded and relatively lightweight bikes – we’re going to load them up whenever we go out now to get used to how they handle with the extra weight on them.  And, um, get our legs used to doing extra work.  Before we hit the mountains...  Which happens to be a mere 4 days into our ride…

So we had our Indianapolis kick-off party this past weekend (which was a really awesome time, thanks to all of you who came out to the party!), and are currently struggling through a short week at work.  We’ll pick my parents up from the airport on May 31^st after work, and begin the trek to the East Coast!  In my true no-spare-moment traveling style, I’ve lined us up for attending a music festival on June 1^st in New Jersey (who else will be at the Appel Farm Festival?), driving to D.C. the next day for our East Coast kick-off party on the evening of June 2^nd, then hopping on down to Williamsburg, VA for a bright and early start to our trip on June 3^rd.  We may or may not begin this trip in the absolute best imaginable way – hungover and exhausted…

We’ll have at least a few people accompany us on our ride out of Yorktown, VA that morning, so we better be ready to transition from weekend partiers to dedicated cyclists!  Not gonna lie…since my parents will be accompanying us by car for the first couple days of our trip, we’ll probably let all of our gear ride in my Jeep with them.  No need to do more work than is necessary as we ease into this daily high-mileage routine J

Another transition that has already begun…cyclist tans!  We rode about 35 miles a couple of weeks ago, and came back with awesome tan lines – our knees, arms (but only from short sleeve to our gloves!), and funky lines on our feet from sandal straps.  And this was while wearing 50 SPF sunscreen…just wait til you see what these lines look like by the time we reach the Pacific!

And now the “this is the last time we’ll do X until September” things are starting to happen…last time we’ll mow our lawn tonight, last time eating at our favorite Chinese place down the road (where they embarrassingly know our orders by heart), last trip to the dog park with the boys, last local bike ride, last time we’ll see our friends…the list goes on.  Change is hard – but we know this will be worth it!