12-13-09 Day 1

Heading out from parents' house in Boulder was surreal. I'd been planning the trip for about 11 months, but my departure date always seemed a long ways off, until now. My brother and dad guided me down the icey driveway to the street, both wished me luck. Mom waved goodbye with tearful eyes, she's clearly not amused with my latest adventure.

The plan was to head out I-70 to Limon then drop southeast to Lamar, an easy 4 hour ride or so. I had been riding for close to an hour when I saw a sign for Limon. 65 miles. 'What! 65 MILES?!' I yelled into my helmet, for some reason I thought it should have been just a few more miles down the road.

I quickly realized my foolishness. 65 miles is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to this trip. I honestly don't know how far it will be to the tip of South America. While laying in bed this morning and looking at the map on my iPhone I estimated it to be around 10-15k miles, guess we'll just have to see.

I also realized that I should probably enjoy the luxury of America's infrastructure. The road was perfectly paved, traffic was scarce, armed bandits weren't on the radar, my cell phone worked, the weather wasn't terrible and I didn't have to watch out for Mexican speedbumps. I slowed it down a bit knowing that things would be changing quite a bit in a few days.

It wasn't exactly warm outside, but I was bundled-up properly with an electric vest, heated grips, a balaclava with my body covered in Gore-Tex. I had also stuffed a few heat-packs on my thighs which worked great.