May 2010

Downtown Dallas map (no,we are not going to Dallas)

Nervousness is setting in.  We are packed and ready to go.  This time tomorrow we will be in the air on the way to Vancouver!  Whew.  Maybe I will need something to occupy my time not spent pedaling, camp cooking, or staring into the beautiful scenery.  I was thinking about doing some kind of embroidered piece about the bike tour.  It might be like a sampler, kind of a loose collection of things held together by a border or done in some of kind of loose template (like squares).   There are a lot of inspiring embroidered maps as well.  Hmm. I will pack some fabric and floss and we shall see what happens! 

It will most likely not be as detailed as these!

Long Isle Land by H. Adams, 1938 (George Glazer Gallery)

Map Sampler (unfinished), Sarah Ann Drayton, 1805

Well, that wasn't really what I would call easy.  Took all day.  Blood, sweat and tears (whining, anyway) were involved.  No pictures, sorry.

Highlights:

• Getting done.

Lowlights:

• All other phases of the process.  Especially the parts where the bikes wouldn't fit into the boxes.

Two Wheel Drive was very helpful and I wish I had gone there initially.  I got the boxes at Fat Tire, but the bike-packing widgetry they gave me there was incomplete because I didn't know what to ask for.  The guy at Two Wheel just let me dig through their big bucket of widgets and scurry off with what I needed. 

I also found these helpful:

and

Boxing Your Bicycle (adventurecycling.org)

and

How to Box a Bike (jimforeman.com)

Now the health and safety of our bikes is in the hands of US Airways.  This end up, people.  Clearly marked.