Learning as we go

The hills of the California Coastal Range are teaching us a few things about packing light and trusting the inherent goodness of people. It's been very tough to pedal our heavily laden bicycles up the steep inclines, but we've made it over some tall ones. We've been repeatedly delighted by the graciousness of strangers.

We're spending today reassessing our projected route, considering our behind projection progress of the days since we parted ways with our support vehicle in Arcata. We've decided to avoid Highway 1 entirely, because we've heard it is treacherous. We've also extended down to Santa Barbara, because we've met marvelous hosts there. The new route is posted (http://www.catalystsofhope.org/west.html).

Another goal is to reduce our load. It's challenging to let go of things we think we need, but after a few hills it will be easier. Heavy clothes for northern climes can go, as can paper copies of electronic documents. We wish we could compress our sleeping gear more, but we can't afford the really light equipment.

We also want to learn to leave earlier and ride more intently, so that we can spend more time with hosts. I suspect we'll get better at this as we go, but the children aren't likely to become disciplined cyclists soon. Perhaps the lesson is about planning and projection...