less than 24 hours before i fly out to seattle to start the biggest adventure of my life. i’ve talked with so many different people about this and have had others express jealousy, fear, excitement, really just about every emotion they can for my journey. i’m grateful to have such a vast collection of friends and relatives that support me on this. there have been donations from people all over the country, even some people that i don’t know. i’ve heard from people that i haven’t seen or talked to in twenty years. it’s amazing to see everyone coming together with this. i like the donation website that i have, but there’s one thing that i noticed today: you don’t get to customize your thank you letters. with that discovered, i’ll recommend reading the next paragraph specifically for donors.

“thank you for your donation. without you and your contributions, this wouldn’t be possible. over the past three months, i’ve planned and worked very hard to make sure that this will be a very successful fundraiser and amazing adventure. i can’t wait to share every detail with you about the great parts of the country that some of us will never see. please share this and let’s work to complete the $10,000 goal.”

today i have a list of things to do. it’s going to be a busy day and i can probably accomplish everything in the next few hours if i try hard. packing the bike should be easy. the most concerning thing is reshifting weight of my two carryon bags and case for the other bags. i’m still about .2 pounds over. ideally i’d like a 2lb window for that, so there’s no question about the weight. speaking of weight, i’ve added about 20 pounds to my body so that i don’t lose too much riding across the country. i currently burn between 3,000 & 4,000 calories everyday, but when you’re touring you can burn between 5,000 and 9,000 easily. i’m definitely going to lose weight, but i just have to make sure that it’s not too much.

the butterflies this week have came and went, now i’m just anxious.