Five weeks and counting.  The final countdown has begun, and the amount of visits by the FedEx man is decreasing.  Our pile of gear has taken over the garage and I'm making a valiant attempt at imposing some sort of order upon the chaos.

I feel good about where we are in our efforts to drop out of life for a couple of years, but we still have a good ways to go.  This is the very first time since 1973 that our house has been totally, completely emptied out, and we are finding all kinds of little odds and ends that need to be attended to.  We're stripping wallpaper, patching holes, and taking off fixtures in preparation of painting the entire house.  It may not be finished by the time we leave, but we should have made good headway – and it'll be easier for the property management people to finish it up.

With each day that passes I feel more and more excited and apprehensive at the same time.  No – I'm not concerned about the biking part of this adventure.  That's the easy part.  It's all the little details that are a pain in the patootie right now – making sure we've got our finances organized so we can access them if we need to, arranging for mail drops, and making sure the house is safe. 

I keep telling myself that, come June 8, we will simply board that airplane and leave it all behind – whatever isn't done at that point, won't be.  And that will be OK.