I am leaving for Scotland on October 1 with the bike and some luggage. Today I ordered my Ortlieb rear panniers and the handlebar pannier. I don't have the Ortlieb front panniers yet or the rack pack but I will order them once I get to Scotland or if a big cookie order comes in I will order them then.
I am planning on riding the Prince's Trust Palace to Palace Ride on Oct. 5 in London which is a 45-mile ride from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle. Should be loads of fun and I'll be with lots of other cyclists. At the end of the ride everyone gets a medal, and that will be lovely. I haven't officially signed up for it yet, but I'm waiting until after August 1.
There's a chance on Oct. 8 that I will be walking the red carpet at the Leicester Square world premier of the film, The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch, but I have to wait until my current houseguest, with whom I am staying in Scotland, makes arrangements. He's a member of BFI, and he can get us in. Just needs to be back home to do it.
So basically I will be leaving LAX on Oct. 1, arriving Glasgow Oct. 2, taking the train back to London on Oct. 4 and doing the ride on Oct. 5. That ride starts at 7:00 a.m., which will be like 11:00 PM to me... oy! Jet lag!!!! Then after the ride I will hang out in the London area somehow until the event on Oct 8, if that gets arranged. So between Oct. 5 and Oct. 8 I will be riding my bike in London and visiting some of the SHERLOCK locations. Woo hoo! So excited to do that. Will be going to Speedy's Cafe for sure at some point. Then on Oct. 9 it's back to Scotland where I will hole up and write and ride for a few months. Sometime in January I will be leaving Scotland and will tour Wales before setting off to either Ireland for touring or mainland Europe.
I can spend 180 days in any country, pretty much, on my passport, and I want to spend 180 days in Britain but need to break it up because I will be wanting to tour from north to south and meander through the land meeting as many people as I can, experiencing the culture and breathing the air. I want to visit the places I have written of, also visit the CHITTY locations, well, the ones that I know. Plus I want to be back for late summer 2015 to see Cumberbatch in HAMLET, if I can get a ticket. I suspect they will all be sold out almost instantly when they go on sale early August of 2014. All the fangirls will snatch them up. If I miss it, I miss it.
The car, "the beast," is gone now. God provided a simple and clean solution for it, and it bought the rear panniers for the bike. Now to pretty much get rid of everything else I own. A few things will be sent to my sister in Texas for storage, but I honestly don't expect to see them again because I don't have any plans to set up house again for a long time.
From October 1, I consider the rest of my life to be a grand adventure on the bicycle.
