Okay, so for me this is the longest day of the entire event. Mostly because you spend time trying to figure out what you need and more importantly what you don’t need to take on this long journey.
The best part of the day was getting at the whole team together! It was great to see everybody in the same room–all excited to ride and all very nervous. We had a slight incident in that we almost didn’t get the Cal Team tenting together, but between Christine and I, we manage to figure it out. Big props to Christine.
The other thing that everyone started getting used to today were the lines. Lines everywhere – lines to sign up, lines to drop off your bike, lines to go pee. This is going to be one of the biggest things of the entire ride. I think you actually spend more time standing in line than you do riding your bike. What’s funny is to hear people strategize about how to use the lines effectively. For example, I overheard the following:
When you ride into a reststop, grab your food and then go stand in the porta-potty line. You can eat your food while waiting to go pee.
These people are very creative!
Well, after longer than expected day at the Cow Palace, we managed to make it back home. I still have 1000 little errands to run and I’m hoping to be asleep by 10 PM tonight. We’ll see.
devinwicks 