Nah! It would be SO much better to leave tomorrow instead of today...

Yes, tomorrow would be a much better day to leave, right? Truth is, we weren't ready. Too many last minute things to do, too much to pack, etc. We knew we had a seven hour drive ahead of us, and rather than drive exhausted and arrive late at night, we decided to start fresh tomorrow. Early.

As a side challenge, Sly and Fly had trouble with the electric tricycle tray attached to our vehicle. (More on our electric trike later.) The test drive was great, but once we were loaded and on the road, we were bottoming out and flapping up a storm. Yikes! After pulling over, taking everything out of the car, watching videos on our phone to be sure we had the thing installed right, we figured out how to balance the weight to avoid scraping the pavement. Once out at The Farm (Rusty's home) we were able to offload some of our heavier stuff. After an hour of repositioning, re-ratcheting, and re-netting, we think we've got it. Fingers crossed.

This delay shouldn't put us too far behind. We had built in a day for cushion, but this leaves us less flexibility if we have trouble along the way. But we are a scrappy lot, so we will figure it out!

Note from Sly: Today was anxiety-producing for me, because I'm not all that fond of driving anyway. Add in a big tray and tricycle behind, plus all the scraping and flapping, and I'm extra nervous! But one of the things I love about The Rusty Iris project is that it's a challenge. Every day brings a new problem to solve, and after solving a million problems, you start to feel bigger. Like problems aren't a problem.

When it got real that The Rusty Iris was going to drive all the way from Charlottesville to Nevada, at first I assumed we would just fly out to Reno and meet Rusty and the crew there. I had already started scaling down my long distance driving in favor of train travel. But then I thought. EPIC ROAD TRIP! SEIZE THE DAY! So I just decided I had to stop letting driving make me anxious. Today, the driving didn't make me anxious! The flapping and scraping did, but not the driving. Wanna cure a fear? Find a bigger one!

So, we leave tomorrow morning at 9:00.

We've received so many well wishes for our journey! Thank you, and look for more here tomorrow.

Sly