Just resting before the journey

What my life is reduced to.

My bike is supposed to get new tires tonight, and tomorrow I should pick it up.  Then I will start loading it and taking some local trips with it fully loaded so that I can get the feel of it, because I have a lot of miles to travel.  Plus I need to still see what has to be pitched from the stuff I have left.  I know I have too much clothing that I just don't have room for.

I still have to ship out three boxes, but then I'm pretty much done.

The orange front panniers arrived yesterday, and I love them, of course.  I really wanted orange...whatever it takes to be brightly seen on the road.  Now just awaiting my new tent which I hopefully will not have to use too often, but there are some places where it might be necessary, even if it's in someone's back yard.

Since I am calling this place my first official Warm Showers host, even though they aren't with Warm Showers (but are signing up!), I will tell you that my host has purchased a new set of tires for me.  They are being put on the bike tonight or tomorrow.  I don't know how old the tires are that are currently on the bike, but I do know that I have put over 1300 miles on them, and I just don't know how old they were before that.  Not to mention I made a mistake a few weeks ago and ran them through freshly laid asphalt.  That was a mess.  Oh yeah.

So another sponsor is looking into getting me a yellow Ortlieb rack pack, something I need to keep the tent and the sleeping bag dry.  The sleeping bag arrived yesterday and it is oh so light compared to the other monster I had.  So much smaller too.  The tent weighs less that 3 lbs also.  I think it comes in at 2.9 lbs and is orange.

So, I just have to be very strict with what I am taking.  I even put my big NASB Bible into storage because the thing just weighed too much for the bike.  I am jettisoning things right and left still.

And that's where I'm at.  Next week I will take the bike down to the beach and dip the back wheel into the water, then will ride on Saturday, Oct. 18 out to San Gabriel.