Big grins all around

There's a new moon tonight, and while I don't want to sound like a broken record (but what the hell! It's my blog), it's almost here. We set out on the morning after the next new moon, and I'm SO ready to go.

I got the last of the clothing last night. Salomon sent some really lovely gear last week, including some great, windproof trousers, but since I don't really want to (uh....how should I put this.....) cause irritation to my girly bits with cotton underwear under the trousers, I bought two pairs of Pearl Izumi liner culottes, which are easily washable and very lightweight. I'm kind of spoilt for choice, really, since I have a wide range of clothing for all seasons now. (And after the cold snap we suffered yesterday - temperatures went down 13 degrees in one day - I'm a lot more aware of the need to pack carefully for any weather contingencies.)

Rather than make a run back into Madrid halfway through the trip, during our rest day in Aranjuez, I've asked a friend of a friend to hold onto some stuff that I can pick up when I get down there on April 6th. I figure that that's what people who go on longer adventure trips do - they keep stashes of food and equipment along the way so that they don't have to haul everything along at once. The package will include the notes and material for Castilla - La Mancha and Andalusia, the second half of the labels to mark the route (I'm still concerned about how much 5,000 labels weigh) and a stock of personal items, like samples of toothpaste, shampoo and liquid laundry detergent. I know it hardly counts as a stash on the side of Everest, but I'd rather do that, rather than haul it all along at once.

What's left to get? Video camera, extra rechargeable batteries, a couple of new bras and a download of the video editing software. I don't think I'll be able to put the mini-documentaries up on the internet until after I get back, but I'd rather get as much of it sorted as I can before I go.

Twenty-five to go, with giggle fits

I haven't been able to get much nap time in today. I only slept about six hours last night (nerves? caffeine? who knows?) and tried to set my head down about two hours ago. And I couldn't do it. I kept staring at the cardboard Ikea boxes on top of the cupboard and I lasted about twenty minutes before I pulled them down and started to practice packing. Which is kind of dumb because a) the rest of the clothing and footwear from Salomon Sports won't arrive until next week; and b) because I live in a very small apartment. How small, you say? Twenty-one, count 'em, twenty one square metres. No McMansions for this cyclepath. Which is probably just as well, because if I had the money to get a McMansion, God only knows how much cycling stuff I would get on the way.

But now the nerves are starting to set in. The moon is starting to wane, and the next time we have a full moon, I'll be in the Basque Country, drinking txakoli and eating my face off. The thought of being able to finally go and do this is making me smile harder than anything. This is freakin' frightening, to be honest. Candy and I went out for coffee this morning and I was telling her that it's like not being able to decide whether I should scream joy from the roofstops, or hide in my closet from Easter until May Day. I know that I'm not going alone; I'll be accompanied by Andrew, a buddy of my best buddy's brother. So there's going to be some male companionship as well. But half of me just wants it to be Palm Sunday, and half of me would love to beg for another three weeks to get stuff done. I don't know where we stand with the route-marker stickers. I never got around to having the bookmarks made. Trans-Iberian jerseys? I could only wish. And this is basically just organizing a trip for ONE PERSON to do - not fifty or five hundred. How the hell do the organizers of multi-day, multitude events get things done?? (Dumb question, natch: They don't do every single, stupid, niggly detail themselves.)

Here's the funny thing, though. The more I start getting really scared, the more people start pitching in to help. At the beginning, people volunteered to help, but in the end, an awful lot of them flaked out or didn't even bother to return calls or e-mails. But now that it's getting closer, so many people are starting to pitch in and do small but effective things without being asked. María Luisa from Onda Cero is going to do a story on the trip for Onda Cero Córdoba. Fernando stepped in and contacted the printers' for an estimate on the labels. Julián and Gon went over the Spanish version of the handbook and provided opinions. Stuart and Jools have offered to put me up for a night or two in Ordizia, on the way up to providing they're not going out of town themselves during Easter. And Pilar's put an abbreviated version of the press release out to the other members of the ConBici biking organizations, which will hopefully motivate more people to join us.

So...slowly but surely it's getting there.

Slowly being a matter of opinion and perception, naturally.