Punchlist

Departure time is 48 hours away as I type this. People who build houses have a "contractor's punchlist" of items that need to be checked off before the job is considered done. Marty and I are working our way down our own pre-departure tasks. 

• Marty asked the dealer to look his bike over and they recommended changing brake pads. That will be completed on Friday.
• I picked up the hitch tongue (2" ball) and electrical adapter (bullet to flat four) needed for trailering the bikes to Denver. My pickup appointment at U-Haul is 10:00 am Friday.
• As the parent of an employee, my father flies standby on Delta for free. He has kindly agreed to jump a flight on Wednesday to Denver and make the return drive to Minneapolis with Julie and Wesley.
• The saddle bags that were ordered for Marty's bike have not come in. The dealer is exploring other options. Frankly, I am not counting on Marty to carry much of the load on his much smaller bike (more on this later). He could get by with a backpack and a few bungee cords, but layover saddle bags would be best. 

Wednesday night we set up tents in the front yard.  The exercise confirmed that we had all the poles, stakes, and whatnot and should be ready to set up camp the first night at Bandelier National Monument without too much fumbling.

Marty went to a concert by the band Rammstein the Tuesday night.  He showed us cameraphone video of the lead singer prancing on a giant ... err ... dork fitted with a saddle and spewing a continuous blast of ... err ... white foam onto the crowd. Marty's hearing had fully recovered but he was way behind the curve on sleep. 

His tent is a single-person unit designed for backpacking.  The tent is new, so after setting it up he zippered himself in and promptly fell asleep. I probably would have left him to spend the night there, but about 90 minutes later I heard the automatic sprinklers begin their cycle.  I woke him and we packed and stowed the camping gear in the large duffle that will serve as my backrest on the road.