Tomorrow we leave on our 2013 bike touring trip

This year, Steve and I are joining Bob and Brent riding from Seattle to Salem Oregon through the Cascade mountain range (mostly Mount Hood and Mount Rainier). July 24 – Aug 4. We’re boarding the train in Santa Barbara to go to Seattle. This year we decided to get what Amtrak calls a “roomette” for more comfort and easier sleeping for the long 30+ hour journey.

We will try to post a few photos and story each day. Click “follow” to subscribe or simply check back at this website.

Gear changes:
Steven and I are using the same bikes and panniers as last year but Steve reduced his gear by ~5 pounds (better/lighter sleeping bag etc) and I cut back ~2 pounds (just a little bit less stuff). I returned my Joos solar panel because it didn’t work well for me last year. I think it might have been defective. Thanks to REI’s generous return policy I got full credit back and bought a different panel(7 watts). The brand is Goal-zero Nomad 7 (http://www.goalzero.com/shop/p/11/Nomad-7-Solar-Panel/3:4/) If I don’t use it to directly charge my iPad, I will connect a universal battery I got (LimeAde with 48 Watt-hour capacity). Because it has USB outputs, it can be used to charge most of our devices including iPad, iPhone, Garmin GPS, Camera. I also got a Apple camera connection kit to make it easier to transfer photos from my camera or iPhone to my iPad (instead of email). I did this because Apple’s PhotoStream feature needs a WiFi connection and we often don’t have that Apparently it can’t work over cell phone network. I was hoping to do this with Bluetooth but it seems that doesn’t work either.

That’s all for now.