It's starting, the near-to-day-of-travel frenzy.  I have a load of clothes in the washer, hopefully the things that I will be packing on the trip.  Right now I'm at Stef's as we sit side-by-side working on our blogs, in preparation for our 2010 WOW / Maple Surple (which is purple with an S for those who enjoy the color purple) Run and adventures east, south and west. 

As I understand it, this run to Vermont is to pick up maple surple so that little kids in the bush communities can have maple surple on their pilot bread.  Stef told me that, and of course, I am willing to go along on the mission as it's all about the miles.  The humanity of it really doesn't apply to me; I'm not concerned.  That's Stef's problem to deal with.  I will calculate miles to or from a place, how long it will take to get there, routes, and how many food stops.  That is my mission.

Fire Mike's license plate / really sweet.  Is he, or isn't he?

Another practice photo, of someone who may or may not hang around with Harvey, Tom, Julie and me.  People want to ride with us, and they do.  They just don't last long.  We don't see much of them after ... do we ride too hard, too long, too fast, too many miles?  It's a mystery to me.  We kind of view ourselves like the Seinfeld group ... friends to each other because no one else wants to be our friend; we're stuck with one another.  So, people come, and people go.  And we're still friends, riding together across the land.

Meds are gathered, but need to add vitamins for the trip, $$$ is pulled from the bank account, including Canadian for the trek across.

The plan for the trip is for me to ride out Tuesday morning and I plan to stay in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, just across the border, about 450 miles from Anchorage.  The next day, I'm not sure where I'll end up.  Whitehorse is about 300 miles further.  But depending on weather, depending on my mood, how tired I may be, or not, I may continue.  I have to be in Golden, British Columbia on Saturday to meet up with Stef.  She's riding from San Francisco, leaving Friday night (tomorrow) heading down to pick up her bike.  She will ride out on Monday, probably, heading north.  We figure we each have about 15-1800 miles or so to get to the meet destination.

From Golden we'll travel across Canada, eh, until we get above Vermont, then drop down to the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory.  If we're lucky, we'll get to visit twice, once on own; once with the Women on Wheels group that we will meet with for the annual Ride In.  Ice cream, does it get a whole lot better than that?  I think not.

More on the plan later.  Don't want to give it all away ... so, good night.  Lots left to do in preparation.