It’s crazy that it’s already June and only about two months before we’ll take off on our trip. I’m starting a new journal.

We’re conducting a little equipment test on a ride through the Altmühltal, which I hadn’t seen yet. I never knew this beautiful place was so nearby and I never could have experienced it more intensely then on a motorbike. It’s one beautiful scene after another, unfolding fields on patchwork hillsides. The beautiful colors in the setting sun and the long shadows on the meadows of the trees, and of my bike and me.

It was my first longer ride with panniers and it made the handling a little different because of the extra weight. The biggest difference I noticed was in stopping and taking off, and maneuvering on steep and narrow roads. Basically anything slow took a lot more effort than usual.

We camped and I tried to imagine how it would be out on the road for six months. The whole concept of time has been occupying my mind throughout the preparation. Counting down the days, and then suddenly I’d have more free time at once than I’d had in years. I would thinking back six months ago. That’s how long it the trip will be. Time stretches, shifts and reshapes as our perspective changes. I started practicing being present in the moment, so that I can experience the travels in a mindful and present way as well. I resisted the urge create a paper chain to count down the days (I did this many times in my childhood), but they whizzed past anyway and here we are, testing gear and I can’t even imagine what all we have to accomplish before we leave.

We are beginning to live from one checklist to the next. One point on the list is a blog. Everyone is asking how we’ll share. Although we still don’t have a name for the blog (and I really have no time and nerve for it right now with so many other things to think about), lots of ideas come to mind as I was enjoying the rural scenes and gentle curves of the Altmühltal. They always seem so clear and worked out while riding, then I sit here trying to reconstruct them. I’m thinking about the events leading up to the trip. Me experiencing travel on two wheels and learning to ride the motorbike, the preparations and all the help and encouragement I received. I’ve noted down several topics which came to mind while riding this weekend, and I’m sure they will all come up in the yet unnamed blog.