PacTour Day Zero

3500 miles in 26 days, averaging 130 miles per day on the bike should be interesting.  Hey if the Tour de France guys can do it I'm sure we can too!!  I guess it's a good idea for the Queen stage to be Day 2 - 165 miles with 8000 feet of climbing.  We'll see...

I figured we'd need 2 cars to take 4 Slausons, bags and bikes to the airport, leave it to Matt and Terri to fit everything into one vehicle.

Lots of long-term friendships are forged during Pactours.  Carolyn (far right) picked us up with our bags and bikes from the Seattle airport at 11pm, took us on a ferry ride to Whidby Island and treated us to a night of relaxation in her beautiful home.  Now we spend the next 26 nights in Best Westerns, Super 8's and Motel 6's...

Pactour support and organization is outstanding - here is the Motel Trailer which carries our luggage each day, holds our supplies and even brings our bike boxes across the country.

Tomorrow we start riding so, like Remo Williams, "The Adventure Begins."  

To "help" us each day we discuss a philosophical topic.  Yesterday's theme was "Action" and we referred to such quotes as Vince Lombardi's "It is time for us to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it."

Today's topic was "Living in the Day" which is something Dan Millman fans might recognize as central to his philosophies of "Clear your mind and be in the moment" and "There are no ordinary moments"

We will see how long until the first mutiny....