Hurry up and wait

It's 12:45AM on the day I'll call day 1 after I wake up.

just over 12 hours ago, I was kissing my partner goodbye, petting the cat one last time, and wobbling in my first ride that was truly fully loaded from my house to the train station. Yesterday I discovered that my bike and gear together weigh more than 110 pounds, and since my bike's only 30...I'm carrying more than 50% of a me (at 200 pounds) along with me on this trip!

Lori was kind enough to snap a couple pictures of me and the steed, so you don't have to settle for text alone:

too tired to figure out how to add images to this site so here they are on google photos

But, today was 6 miles in 2 rides, to the train station, and then from it to my hotel. I got to the train station early since it is international and I wasn't 100% convinced that I wouldn't have to box my bike, so left plenty of time to stand around uselessly, since I could have arrived 10 minutes before departure (though having shown up 2 minutes too late for a train once in the past, I try not to cut it that close anymore...)

The ride was decent, scenic, crowded, but not too annoying until we got to vancouver and waited about 2 hours for a drawbridge and another train or two within a few miles of the station. Then it took a fair while to get my poop in a group to get into line for customs, so I was last. But Canadian customs is easy: "why are you here?" "gonna ride this to Jasper in June!" "oh, wow, good luck!" The train conductor was standing around and said "uphill both ways to Jasper, eh?" and I concurred, having just mapped the ride and found it to be over 60k feet of climbing in ~1k miles. But, one of my favorite places on earth, I told him, and he agreed and mentioned that he'd grown up there.

Now for some well deserved sleep before I roll out in freezing rain to the ferry tomorrow morning. Planned ride of 35ish miles (much of which I did to start my last tour down the coast, since the westernmost bridge is substantially to the east of me and the ferry terminal, and also the route to the US); a nice short day, ending in an airbnb where I'll be able to warm up and write to you again.