Final preparations & a sense of excitement

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Down to the final preparations! We have got less than a month before departure, and about two weeks before we ship the motorcycle to Fairbanks, Alaska. Finally, after several years of mental and physical preparation for this trip, the final count down has started, and it is with a certain sense of excitement that we are counting down to our final departure. Christer has, in total, put in close to 1,500 hours of preparations into this trip, and he is definitely looking forward to get on the road and start driving. Zoe is still buried with tons of school work, and has probably not yet fully realized what is coming...



The preparations have included a countless number of things to do; so many that it is impossible to keep track of them several years later after the seed was planted in Christer's head for this adventure trip back in the fall of 2003 when we still lived in Stockholm, Sweden. The background research for our PanAmerican adventure has included things such as, customs, visa entry and vehicle permit requirements research for each country, to grade of fuel available along the route and the ordering of special custom parts for the motorcycle. Also, a huge amount of hours has been spent during the weekends on working with digital maps, laying down GPS coordinates, calibrating alternative routes for many parts of the trip, and figuring out how to organize the digital tracks and path that we intend to follow in a manner that will be easy and quick once we are on the road.



Over the past 9 months, many hours and conference calls have been devoted to purchasing, donating and helping recipient schools and libraries that we have selected for this mission, with setup and use of the Kindle e-readers we have been providing them with. We really look forward to physically now visit each and one of these schools and libraries, and experience first-hand how our donations and ongoing technical help to implement and use the e-readers, is actually working out.



There is only thing that is for sure, now that there is less than a month left to departure for Fairbanks: this will definitely be an adventure, and few things (if anything at all!) will go according to plan. I guess that's the reason why this trip is an "adventure" rather than a leisure trip.

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