Leavin On a Jet Plane! D-9 hrs

"Nobody is ever met at the airport when beginning a new adventure. It’s just not done."

-Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. A View of the Nile

Boulder Colorado, late, the night before.

Finally time to go! I am as ready as I will ever be.

Bike will fly with me and is packed in a hard shell bike box that I borrowed from a very generous friend of the trail and fellow FROG named Mark C. He had an accident mountain biking in Moab earlier this year and is unable to bike or travel this season. Please send the positive energy his way as he recovers!

Thanks Mark! You will see your bike box return soon via FedEx, nice, empty and hopefully intact.

I'm the bike in the box! Some assembly required.

We will see it on the other side of the border!

One logistical lesson learned. Make sure if you have a big piece of luggage (see above) that the transportation from the airport (in this case the Banff Airporter, excellent customer service so far) can drop you off at a location at least near your hotel. Luckily, in this case, my place is only a mere 500 meters (metric, "when in Rome..") away from the designated shuttle drop, but I'm it sure would have been fun to have been that guy that was lugging his gear five kilometers down the Trans Canada Highway!

Might want to check out these details before hand when booking your hotel online...the mapping technology is out there and easy to access. In this case, I should have known better and just got lucky.

Anyway, thanks to all for the support and encouragement during the preparation for this. I will be posting as much as possible.

Next post will be in Canada! Woo Hoo!