Last Preparations and Final Planning

We just got our bikes checked out by our local bike shop and everything looks solid to start on our long trip. I've been doing the maintenance and upgrades to touring needs myself but being fairly new at it I wanted a pro to check my work for piece of mind. Looks like I passed. 😄

We're reevaluating our route for the first two weeks through the great plains. You see the TransAmetica trail which we pick up in Ordway, CO plus the 3 days it takes us to get to Ordway from our house requires us to travel in some very, very sparsely populated areas through eastern CO and KS on some very lightly traveled back roads. If we jog our trip just a little south and ride on US 50 on or near the American Discovery/Sante Fe Trail we travel a slightly more populated route through towns like La Junta & Lamar, CO and Garden City & Dodge City, KS. This give us access to food and water during each day therefore needing to carry less.  The counterpoint is we'll have more traffic to deal with. Decisions, decisions....

Mentally we're moving through the process of a "romantic excitement and adventure" when the trip was far off to the fear and trepidation as the start day gets closer (What have we done??!!). We are now moving into a new stage of "lets just do this thing!"