SF to Portland

Currently on the 5 on my way up to portland.  I've hitched a ride with my Mom and her friend who are going on a car camping road trip.  They'll be spending tonight in Portland, then tomorrow night camping in Tillamook with us before continuing on to Canada.  It's pretty tight back here with all of our gear.  To give you an idea:

I'm on a verizon 4g usb card, which will serve as my uplink while on the road.  So far, so good.

Yesterday I laid out all my gear and played with packing a bit.  It's pretty amazing how all the little things add up.  It covered a good section of the office floor.

One of the more interesting item's I've picked up recently is the usb solar panel from brunton.  You can see it towards the right of the frame.  It's four small panels on a synthetic sheet that folds up really nicely.  There is a usb port on the back which you plug in to.  I tried it out on the dash earlier and it took my phone from 80% to a full charge in about an hour, which was better than I was expecting.  I'm hoping that it can keep my phone alive for the day while running the gps.

The other cool item I found is a super light collapsable camping chair.  It has a frame like a tent, which quickly snaps together, and a synthetic piece of fabric that stretches onto the frame.  There were two almost identical options from alite, one of which had only two legs.  I don't understand why you'd want a leaning chair when you could add the extra two legs for such a small difference in size/weight.  I want to be like this guy at the end of the day.

I also found these cool compression sack / dry bag combinations from sea to summit.  The bottom layer is some material that's breathable (so you can compress) but keeps out water (dry).  You roll the top like a dry bag, but then it has the compression cinches. 

While at REI I asked a sales guy where the clothespins were, but instead he taught me "an oldtimer's" trick: string up half a length of line, then twist is on the way back.  This way the line can pinch whatever you want wherever you decide.  I should ask something related to this of my next interview candidate.

Once I got everything packed up I stepped on the scale.  The grand total of bike + gear: 85 lbs.

Looks like we're in for some unfortunate weather.  It's just started to rain in southern Oregon, and the forecast for the first few days stops look like rain :(  In addition to the dry bag compression sacks I did end up getting some rain gear (jacket, pants, helmet cover) together but I just realized I don't have a jacked with a hood.  Also, my brother was nice enough to drop by a shop in Portland that carried Arkel pannier covers.

The plan is to set our as early as possible tomorrow.  My friend Mike, who also lives in Portland, may join us out to the coast.  Tonight I'd like to finalize our milage plan.  After the training runs, mapping out sections on bikely, and realizing I had undercounted the days til the following weekend, the new plan is to get back in 12 days rather than 10.  Though I think the mileage (~80/day) would have been fine, the average climb of around 7000 ft / day seemed like too much to still enjoy ourselves on this "vacation".

Next stop The Lodge...