The last 36 hours are a blur.  It's 2:40 AM and yet sleep eludes me.  I am kept awake by a combination of nerves and excitement.  A little more than a year ago this idea was birthed and here we are, the calm before the storm.  We took out life insurance on ourselves today.  Doing so left an odd taste in my mouth throughout the day.  Are we opening the door to tragedy or simply being prepared?  Hopefully the latter.  In 11 hours and 20 minutes we will officially begin our big adventure and I do not really know how I feel.  Apprehensive would best describe how I feel and I guess now is a good a time as any for a confession.  We are not as prepared as we hope to be.  We haven't been on our bikes in probably two weeks because they were dismantled and painted.  We have also never ridden them 100% fully loaded.  Life happens and other things took precedent and we will keep moving forward.  This is nothing out of the ordinary for us though, a lack of prepardness.  Three years ago we ran the San Antonio Marathon with essentially zero training.  Was it miserable, painful, ill-advised, and result in a stress fracture on Julie's foot?  Yes, on all accounts, but we completed it and we have acquired the same mindset for the journey ahead. Regardless of how unprepared we may feel, we intend to finish this thing.