T minus 10 Days! Yikes!

Okay, breathe....[inhale... ... ... exhale....]

Dear Chuck 300 supporters, I'm freaking out a little. Just a little. This thing is really getting close.

The 10-day weather forecast now officially extends to the first day of our journey from TAFA. Good news: it's supposed to be partly cloudy, with a high of 84 degrees. I am really, really hoping for dry weather on our trip.

Jenn and I have started to draft a meal plan, which I will finalize with mi madre tomorrow.

We have all our campsites planned out and just need to make a few motel reservations in Corning for our last night out.

We can do this!

We need a bicycle pump! I think my mom has one in her house somewhere. Also, I need to get a few modifications done on my bike before she comes out on (Thursday?) to pick up our dogs, our bikes and our other gear.

Shirts! We need to make t-shirts! This weekend. Definitely, we'll make shirts this weekend. And fliers. I think Jenn is going to write some press releases.

The first leg of our journey goes right through Arlington National Cemetery, which opens at 8 a.m., so I guess we'll be starting our walk at that time.

It should take my mom about 6 hours to drive from Westfield to our rendezvous point in Maryland where we'll get on our bikes for the first time. I don't know where that rendezvous point will be yet. But if she leaves at 7 a.m., she should be catching up with us at around 1 p.m., at which point we'll have been walking for 5 hours, which means we'll be (hopefully) about 17 miles in, somewhere between Kensington and Olney.

Terrain: It looks like the hills of PA really don't start to loom until Harrisburg. We should start Tuesday off on the bikes and switch to walking mid-day as we get to those hills. On Wednesday, we walk the hills in the morning and get back on our bikes around Sunbury where the road follows the Susquehenna River. On Thursday there should be more river to follow to Ralston. After that, I think the terrain is going to be a lot more choppy, with shorter stretches of flat road. I'm glad we'll get a chance to see all this on our way down and take notes. Friday afternoon and Saturday may be the most challenging, terrain-wise.

It will all be okay. We can do this! Right?

Yes! Yes, we can!

I think we can.

10 days to go...