Pre-Adventure Jitters

Clint and I have had different stages of excitement for this trip. My ecstatically impatient phase was about a month ago, when he was still thinking about work and fantasy football. Now we're having goodbye cookouts and family dinners and Clint's thrilled. I'm... excited... but mostly I'm nervous and scared. Of what? I'm not sure.

I always feel this way before a big trip. John Steinbeck explains this moment perfectly:

"In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won't happen. As the day approached, my warm bed and comfortable house grew increasingly desirable and my dear wife incalculably precious. To give these up for three months for the terrors of the uncomfortable and unknown seemed crazy. I didn't want to go. Something had to happen to forbid my going, but it didn't."

Nothing forbade John from hitting the open road the next day--and Clint and I will go south tomorrow.