See the post on the main blog HERE
Our basic plan is go as light as we can and to be as self-sufficient as possible. We will bike and sight-see during the day, most nights will be spent camping, and we will cook most of our own meals.
Firstly, these are items that we are NOT taking (but that we frequently get asked about):
It's cold. Really too cold to be hanging out at our streamside campsite for any longer than we must.
The overnight low was in the 40s, so not terrible, but its not much warmer when we crawl out of the tent at 6am in the morning...
I wake up partially, with cold feet. Hmmm, they're wet.
I put a hand down on the tent floor to hold up my weight so that I can shift on my narrow sleeping pad. Splash. Water.
Target for today: see the headwaters of the Mississippi (in Itasca State Park where we are currently camped), then head to the town of Callaway, where the city offers free camping in their local park.
The 'official' Adventure Cycling Association "Northern Tier" route goes through Osceola, Wisconsin before crossing the border to Minnesota. However, we need to reach a bike shop to deal with Heather's broken spoke and rear derailleur adjustment...
We didn't get much sleep. In addition to being a little cold, my bike lock alarm starts malfunctioning, which means that there's a 110dB alarm going off intermittently next to our tent. ...
Wake up to a pitter patter on the tent. Rain!!
Now I'm fully awake. I sit up. 5.45 am.
"Get up, gotta pack." I'm thinking: get the tent down before it starts really raining. ...
Our target today: get to the bike shop in Hayward to get Heather's front wheel trued. There's a very popular (and expensive!) KOA near Hayward which we'll stay at if we can't find anything else.
After the long hard day yesterday we needed something shorter today. This was reinforced also by not getting out of camp until noon.
Overall, we got kudos from just about everyone on our setup. We were lighter than anyone that we met, and bike shop staff told us that we were lighter than anyone that they had seen as well. There are definitely lighter setups out there, but these had sacrifices that we were not prepared to make.