Merry Christmas Eve! Packing Round 2!

So you'll be glad to hear (if you're even reading this) that today was very successful in getting all of my last minute bike accutrements and I'm freaking out MUCH less.

I did another trip to REI (such an awesome store, maybe I should work there part time) and I got a sweet mini mess kit with a heating canister, sip top, slide out spork, hot fingers silicone gripper and I also bought a pop up cup/bowl.  I'm ready to eat Chicken Broccoli Alfredo in this thing...haha yummm.

I also found these amazing micro towels that are like thin thin sham wows and I'm totally excited about them....

I actually almost forgot to even bring a towel.  I was looking through all my stuff and suddenly realized I would be freezing and wet for my trip if I didn't bring a towel and then I panicked.  Where would I put a towel?  Have you seen towels? they take up so much room. Anyway, this thing absorbs 8x its weight in liquid and dries quickly.  I'm a little obsessed.  

Thank god for 2.5 gallon ZipLocks, and screw those "as seen on TV" clothes bags.  These ZipLocks are fantastic to take all my clothes and suck the air out and fit into my panniers sooo much easier.  I mean take a look at all the clothes I have to bring, and then imagine they all have to fit into essentially two bags the size of small backpacks...anyway, it's a lot (remember the small child I said I'd be carrying esentially...Yep. I'll take a picture for you all when it's finally all packed up (doing laundry tonight and tomorrow).  

In more festive news mom and I made cookies for Christmas tomorrow at Liz's and for our neighbors!  We made Snow Capped Coffee/Chocolate Mountains and Peppermint Oreo Truffles. Um, yum.

Well the bike is all fixed up, I've bought/gathered everything for the trip, now I just have to pack up and hop on my train.  Crazy!! I'm getting very excited for this adventure!

Keep y'all (getting ready for the south) posted on packing, the excitement of checking our bikes on Sunday (wheels off, in 'bike boxes', which we're not sure what that means exactly...) and our 20+ hour train ride.

Merry Christmas, and thanks for treking along with us!

Cheers and spokes,
Esther