Hello friends, family, donators, and anyone else reading my blog. I finally decided to start my blog as most of the team is at Union Station right now getting ready to leave for New York. After a lack of plan for those of us driving the support vehicle to New York, including myself, I convinced Jon that we should wait until the morning to begin driving rather than leaving at 10 pm when the train leaves and driving through the night. Therefore, after months of having May 20th in my head as the day I leave, it is now May 21st. This seems to work out because I am not yet packed. Since I live in a central location of some Chicago suburbs, the other drivers and our van will come to my house tonight and spend the night here. We'll then get up bright and early to begin our drive. I have to say, I'm glad to be driving because it should take about 13 hours to drive to NY, whereas the train is scheduled to take about 20 hours. We'll have 5 drivers which means I'll have time to read and try to sleep, although I have never been successful at sleeping in any type of moving vehicle.
Right now, I feel pretty excited about this trip. I have been planning for it for so long that it seems almost unreal to be starting tomorrow. It hasn't really hit me yet. I'm a little nervous about the first few weeks of biking because I haven't had much time to train lately. I've been so busy with finishing up school, moving out of Urbana, and savoring the last days of college that training became less of a priority. I noticed my lack of in-shape-ness yesterday when I became out of breath after playing tennis for a little while and running a few laps around the tennis courts. I guess I'll be pretty sore these first few weeks.
I hope to keep blogging as much as I can throughout the summer and I would love to receive comments and emails! It's hard to say how often we'll have internet access but I think it will be pretty often at the beginning as we go through lots of major cities. And now I should go pack!