So what exactly is this "plan" ?

For better or worse, I've mostly given up on planning longer trips. Detailed plans aren't usually necessary, and to me they can be rather bothersome as they create artificial expectations and goals that take some of the adventure out of traveling. At this point, my style is more focused on getting some good information and gear together and starting than it is about planning out food and lodging for the entire trip. Everything else will work out.

The Plan, as it stands now, is to find someone to sublet my room over the summer so that I can move back into the same cool little house at the beginning of the fall semester without renting an empty room for two extra months. I hope to have my bike boxed up and shipped sometime around May 10th, the day of my last exams (and therefore school obligations) for this semester. The bike will be shipped to somewhere (likely a bike shop or hostel) in the Yorktown/Williamsburg area, the eastern end of the Transamerica route. While the bike is in transit in the back of a truck, I'll grab a plane on Saturday the 12th and end up at my dad's place in Georgia for a few days of visiting. Sometime around the 17th or 18th, I'll ride up to Damascus, VA (in a car) with either some backpacker friends or my dad to go to Traildays.

Every year, Damascus hosts Traildays, a huge gathering of tourists, backpackers, and other random people. A lot of AT backpackers go back year after year to visit, hang out, and get a few quick breaths of campfire smoke and drying socks before heading back to their "real world" jobs. I've gotten sucked into Traildays every year since 2003, and can't wait to get back! Depending on how things work out, this might be the first year that I'll miss Hardcore, which is a really cool trail maintenance project organized by Bob Peoples, who's something of an AT legend at this point.

After Traildays, the bike trip will really get started. Hopefully at Traildays, I'll be able to work out a ride to the coast of Virginia, where I'll pick up my bike, dip the wheels in the Atlantic, and head west!

That's about where The Plan ends. I want to ride west along the Transamerica route towards the Pacific coast, but I'm not entirely set on making it all the way to the coast, and I don't pretend to have any idea what will happen en route.

The Transamerica route goes through Berea, KY, the town where I went to highschool and where mom and my sister live. More than likely, I'll stop there for a few days to visit with family and friends, then head on westward. Many miles from Berea, the route enters Colorado and makes a sharp right turn to the north just past Pueblo, to head north through the Rockies. At some point in that neck of the woods, likely Breckenridge, I'll take a break to catch a breath and see some Colorado friends before heading north. Way up past Wyoming and Montana, the route goes through McCall, ID, where my good friend Clair will be working as a raft guide (assuming she can't be convinced to come along on the ride ;) ,) so I'll spend a couple days hanging out there, maybe even going on a river trip. Eventually, the route leads to a little town called Astoria, on the Pacific coast. Depending on time, motivation, money, and all the usual factors that govern long trips, I might hang a right and keep riding on up to Seattle, where more friends and family live. Maybe even on to Vancouver if the mood is right.

When the bike ride is over, I'll catch a plane back to school, work, and daydreaming about the next trip.

So, there's The Plan.