Our trip across North America by Ural has suddenly become a reality. We woke up this morning in a bit of a panic to realize that there are only 4 short days until we leave. In my mind, I knew it was coming, but for some reason it finally seemed within reach today. We've been purchasing gear, planning routes, packing and repacking, and getting our dear Elga ready (we've given our faithful steed a good, strong Russian name) for so long that I kind of forgot that we were actually leaving and not just experiencing this trip by computer. The amount of hours we've spent pouring over pictures and videos, reading ride reports on AdvRider, and staring at Google Maps is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure we've left a couple of permanent nose imprints on our laptop screen. 

Anyway, between shooting a wedding tomorrow and editing all the pictures before Tuesday (yikes!), we'll be getting all our gear together and packing for the final time, looking over the bike to make sure Elga is completely ready (she's already had a complete oil change and checkup, which I'm sure she hated as my mechanical skills are terrible), and hopefully getting some sleep. We'll be camping almost the entire was up and even though we have a sweet setup, it's not going to be easy sleeping in the extreme heat of the southwest! In fact, let's be honest with each other sine we're going to be traveling together through this blog - we'll probably be staying in a motel the first night. 

Oh, the adventure on which we are about to embark...