Almost Time!

It seemed like I had so much time……and now my departure date is rushing to me! I feel a sense of exhilaration and a little bit of anxiety and panic. Yesterday I shipped my bike and a lot of gear to the Roaring Mouse Cycle Shop in San Francisco – they will reassemble it for me and hold it until I arrive on the fifth. I figured this was a safer way to have my bike ready than trying to check it on my flight and then reassemble it in the airport. Although one thing I didn’t count on was the cost to ship the bike was 4X the cost of my plane ticket to San Francisco! WOW. Almost $500 bucks. I still think it was the right way to go as the last time I checked my bike on a plane it got lost for two days – granted that was almost 40 years ago on a now-defunct airline…..but I’m sure it still happens all the time – right?

You know how things always seem to go haywire when you have a big trip coming up? Well, this has been no different as one of my Filta work vans full of work equipment was stolen the week before last. No recovery so far, so I am losing hope on that. In the meantime my operations manager Elias and I have scrambled to replace the van and equipment and just succeeded in getting a new van ready and on the road yesterday. Couldn’t have done it without the assistance of Rusty and Victor down in El Paso who provided equipment and Mel and Brock here who fired up the welding equipment at their shop to outfit a new (used) van I was able to find. While this was going on my partner Carmenza’s mom became very ill and Carmenza had to make an emergency trip down to Colombia to tend to her. It is a tenuous situation and we are not sure when she will return. Luckily, things at the restaurant have been fairly smooth (knock on wood). I have kept my departure date on schedule and my biggest worry now is this heat dome that is cooking much of the US – I need some good mojo for cooler weather as I head East.