day 1

Blog post Day 1 April 22,

What a wild first day!!

Separating from Palo Alto was long, sweet and emotionally very intense.  My daughter Lucy tore my heart out as we continued to try to leave.  

We rolled away about 10:30 and went about 5 miles before Catherine fell off her bike going through a bike gate.  Fortunately, she was going slow and there was no damage.

Forty five minutes later we had the first of two flat tires.  They were both on the OHM and we suspect that the tubes were faulty.  That problem is now fixed!

We rolled into our night spot around 5 and found a flat spot for the vehicle and two tents.  

Ray Camaano and Rob Ferber talked to us about their work with their electric drive system for motor scooters.  The potential for this project is incredible since the Chinese government is requiring the use of good quality electric scooters and these guys have the drive trains and the relationships in China and other parts of Asia that they need to get high quality, high performance scooters on the road.

Michael and I visited here almost 2 years ago and Ray's shop was quiet clean and tidy.  Now, it is full of people working late into the night and the excitement and commitment is palpable.

Jeff Litton, a young documentary film maker appeared yesterday morning and joined us for the day and is still with us this morning (day 2).  He is completely delightful and I wish he could stay with the journey.

Brother Michael rode with us yesterday and will return to Palo Alto today.  We'll miss him.

Dave and John are right into the spirit of this ride and adding their passions and curiosity to the adventure.

Sean seems to be having a blast.  He's a very competent driver and mechanic and a delight to be with.  Both he and Dave are quitting smoking together and I hope they are successful.

Catherine is doing great.  She rode the whole day, got a little nap in a park in San Jose and helped calm my jangled nerves last night with a bedside story.  

I only rode half the day yesterday.  I wanted Dave to ride and I was feeling pretty worn out both physically from all the preparation and emotionally from leaving my family.  

As a night cap, we went down to check on our batteries and discovered that they weren't charging fully.  We took a charger apart and Rob was able to diagnose the problem, tore 6 chargers apart, changed some setting that made them fully charge the batteries and put them all back together.  What luck to have Rob who is one of the few people on this planet who could figure out how to make the chargers work.

Today we ride to the Pinnacles where we will be down to our team of 5 until we get to Flagstaff.