Liftoff

It's Sunday morning, September 9th, and I'm just starting on the first leg of my travels, a drive to Sacramento, CA, where I will spend the night at my sister's house and then catch the flight for Jacksonville tomorrow.


What an ordeal it has been trying to get this tour off the ground.

Due to all the wildfires in Southern Oregon I switched my departure airport from Medford to Sacramento, CA.  Flights were routinely being canceled out of Medford due to a lack of visibility from all the smoke.

But then the Delta Fire started just north of Redding, CA, right on Interstate 5, which is the freeway I need to take to get to Sacramento.  And that freeway has now been shut down for 5 days.  So I have to detour around the closure, which could take many extra hours.

And if that wasn't enough, there's a hurricane headed for the east coast.  Hurricane Florence is predicted to make landfall on Thursday, my second day of riding.  It's a category 1 hurricane right now but it's projected to grow to a category 4.  Current estimations have it heading for North Carolina, so maybe I will be spared from it.  But nobody knows for sure until it gets there.

By the time I get on the bike and start riding I'm going to be exhausted from all the worrying.

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