Prologue

I'm not ready!!!

It was only - what? - nine months ago that I decided that 2013 was finally and decidedly the year to repeat my 1981 bicycle odyssey across the country:  a decision reinforced by the announcement that this year would be the 50th anniversary of my high school, and that there would be a combined reunion of the first four classes or so.  There's nothing like a definite target to spur one into action.  After all, that worked with our government and the sequester, didn't it?  <wry smile>

But - nine months later - I'm not ready!

Not that I'm a procrastinator, mind you.  A procrastinator puts things off.  And I just have too much to do.  So of course there are some things that don't get done.  And that's not the same, is it?  Is It?

We moved to Seattle in 1983, two years after my first TransAmerica trip.  We intended to repeat it together, some summer.  But we were both getting settled into a new home and new jobs, and the idea was put on temporary hold.

Then the kids came along.  Well, we thought, that would make it interesting:  we could do the ride on a tandem, and pull them in a trailer.  After all, we'd done a number of tandem rallies that way.

But then they got bigger.  Couldn't stop it.  What the hey - we'll put them on the backs of tandems instead.

One more opportunity missed.  Time marched on, and the kids graduated from high school, and...

...and Christopher graduated from college!  Wow!  Perfect time to do it with him!  He's free, likes to bike, and doesn't have a job yet.  But - darn - I do.  Boss says, yeah, that sounds like a fun trip.  But company policy doesn't allow us to grant extended leaves.  So you'll have to quit.  Okay, I say, what are the chances I'll be hired back?  Pretty good, he says.

Sigh.  I shudda done it.  But - this was the time of the dot.com bust and the start of the Great Recession.  Would our company be caught up in it, and commence layoffs?  I figured that discretion was the better part of something-or-other, and decided to forego the trip.

Big mistake.  I would have been rehired.  And would have had a great father-son experience.

So here we are.  Monday the 13th of May was the targeted departure date.  I figured that would leave plenty of time for me to cycle from Seattle to Yorktown, VA, then back to Niles, MI, arriving in time for the reunion.  But that target has slipped, one day at a time, and the end of the week is looming.  As of now, I'll have to cycle an extra four miles every day to compensate for my tardiness.

Tomorrow's the day.  He says.  In a way, it's the perfect day to leave.  It's Bike to Work day.  (I'll be working my buns off.)  DeAnne will be manning (womanning?) the Bike to Work station at the east entrance to the Mt. Baker ped/bike tunnel.  Cool.  I'm aiming to be all packed and loaded tonight so that, in the morning, I can help her set up, and then take off from that scenic overlook.

Will I make it?  Stay tuned.