Diary

Mileage:  0

Elevation Change:  0

Weather:  sunny and hot and windy

Morale:  anticipation!

Incidents:  none

Daily Summary:

Above you can see what we’ve done so far on our own.  Tomorrow we start with the group to go the rest of the way to Mexico.  Today was the day for the group to gather in Kalispell, get organized, get bikes working, get packed up, and get to know each other.  Our personal errands all went very well.  Laundry was quick and easy in a great Laundromat down the road.  A few blocks the other way was the UPS store, where we shipped a big box of Raymond’s stuff to South Bend that he won’t need on the trip.  Below you can see the scene in the parking lot.  This seems to be a serious and well organized group.  All but seven of us have ridden one of these long rides before with these guys, and there are several ultra distance champions and record holders in the group.  (Race Across America, Paris-Brest-Paris, etc.)  It’s definitely a step up in seriousness from our cross country ride two years ago.  There are 52 people on the roster, youngest is 16, oldest is 65, eleven women.  More as we find out!  We start with our longest day tomorrow—147 miles.  We’ll be happy to finish in around 10 hours.  We’ll see how much energy I have for posting to the website after that!