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April 23, 2004

Two big developments in Operation: Outta Dodge:

After a positive flurry of tinkering and a few minor purchases, both of our bikes are about ready for the trip. New shifters for Sarah, bike racks, bike computers, and handlebar bags and panniers are attached and ready for action.
Also, we talked with our landlady Gretchen last night, and dropped the bomb that May would be our last month in the apartment. Hot damn, now we gotta go!
Yesterday I filled my panniers, front and back, with maybe eighty pounds of books from our shelves, and went on a joyride around town. It was great. Not so much extra work as I thought it was going to be, although I felt it in my arms afterwards. I went just under 13 miles in just over an hour, which I didn't think was too bad for a test run. If we can hold to an average speed in the twelve to thirteen mph range on the trip, we'll be on the bikes for maybe five or six hours a day, and be able to take it with some degree of leisure. This, after all, is to be a vacation, not a deathmarch.
On an aside, Andrew W. K., my Bizzarro-World rock'n'roll alter-ego, is playing a free show tomorrow night in James Madison Park. Hopefully I can get Sarah to go: my eardrums haven't bled since I got fired from my construction job, and it's been forever since I (as W.K. puts it), "Part[ied] Til' [I] Puke[d]"!

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