And we're off!

Every journey starts with sweet calm, tears of farewell and a maddened haste of last minute packing. In a flurry of hurried excitement, the rush of another adventure swept over Israel and I. Just yesterday we were in east Kentucky stocking the furnace room with firewood and throwing all of our stuff into bags, disassembling bikes
and trying to decide on what might be our last music and meal. Now, relaxing in our sleeper on the upper deck of Amtrak's Western Express we're westbound waiting on our dinner reservations. Dinner last night with our wonderful mama was awesome and was our calm before a storm of load and go to the train. Overnight northbound on 51 Cardinal was a painfully sleepless time spent between an 'all knowing' girl and an ex-con who's moving to San Francisco. Today though I reconnected with a girl I met six years ago in Austria and met her boyfriend. After showing us around Chicago they treated Iz and i to Chicago style deep dish pizza. Worlds better than rattlesnake, lizzards and cacti that i'm expecting in southern Arizona and New Mexico! Well, the next two days will all be on a train toward San Diego. Iz has started snoring on the bunk above me. Time to catch up on some quality sleep time.
This journey has begun.