Well well well

Oh boy.

Sorry I've been out of touch. Still a month till I go, but I've been packing assiduously for days. It's like doing a puzzle, and then doing it again, and again. My office is a mess, the bike's leaning on the dining table where we hope the dog won't knock it over, and we eat hunched over the TV trays holding conversations that are, well, merely polite. 

Sorry about the tired picture. It's from last fall's ride -- closest I could come to what I'll look like this year.  And here's my half-finished packing list: 

It's a fluid document. I don't want to carry things I won't use. On the other hand, I want to keep myself from turning savage, stealing food from picnic tables and snatching sleeping bags out of strangers' tents.  

So.

We've had a couple of outdoor dinners with friends at local restaurants, and it was like surfacing after a long period under water. We could actually talk in the old way, interpret a hesitant smile, gauge a shrug of doubt, listen to an anecdote uninterrupted by a spinning connection. We are, again, HUMAN!

June 15 is still my tentative departure date, give or take. We're going to Michigan for a few days at the end of the month, and while I'm there I will drive my first day's ride, just to see what it looks like. If it's nothing but hills and wind and cars, heavens, maybe I'll just cancel the whole thing. 

Such a good boy.