Southern Exposure

Monday & Tuesday, November 17-18

We moved slightly down the road from Fontana to Carlsbad to visit my cousin Elizabeth and her family. They were kind of enough to put us up for two nights in their beautiful home. It was nice to catch of with family I don’t get to see very often. I even got to give my cousin-nephew(?) Christopher a ride on the motorcycle. Unfortunately his parents wouldn’t let us take him with us. Thank you so much Elizabeth and David for your hospitality.

Instead of relaxing during the day at their home, we spent the day running a seemingly endless series of errands. I think we’re in a consumer preparation overload. We keep thinking of supplies to pick. We even thought we were done at the end of the day when we spotted an REI and were sucked in to buy some insect repellent for the mosquito net. I look forward to being out of the preparation phase of the trip and to be doing rather than preparing.

We had the bureaucratic snafu of the trip. When I did an advance renewal of the vehicle registration for the bikes, the clerk renewed the registration twice for the same bike and not at all for the blue bike. Thanks, clerk. I should have noticed it earlier, but with identical bikes the registrations vary little. I slept poorly Sunday night wondering if I would have to fly back to Seattle, but with a few phone calls and a document scan & email, we were set. My good friend Tim went and picked up a proper registration and overnighted it to us in Carlsbad. Thanks Tim – that was a great save.