Three weeks to go (gulp)

Wow. Did another weekend just fly by? We're now THREE WEEKS away from our departure date. I'm restless. My nights of sleeping are gone and have been replaced by tossing and turning, powered by my reeling mind. I can't stop thinking about everything that needs to get done and everything I need to do. We've been planning for so long, but there are so many things that are packed into the last few weeks. Packing up the entire apartment, changing our address, finding health insurance, opening a joint checking account . . . . And it's hard to get organized when it looks like a bomb went off in your apartment. In addition to all the boxes laying around, stuff for the bike tour is sprawled out in just about every room. In all this chaos, for some reason I have a hard time believing that this is actually happening. This bike tour has always been so far on the horizon and now it is 20 days away!

Mixed in with all the packing and bike part installing (for the record, installing mirrors on your bike really sucks and is not easy and is way hard) I did this weekend, I actually got something huge accomplished. Melissa and I have been accepted on two WWOOFing farms! "WWOOFing", which stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is something that I really wanted to do on the bike tour. If you don't know what it is, you should really check it out (www.wwoofusa.org). We heard about it from our friends Jill and Ryan, and for that I am forever greatful. Basically, you volunteer on organic farms and in return, WWOOF hosts offer a warm place to stay, food and the opportunity to learn about organic lifestyles and sustainable living. So, while in Missouri, we will be volunteering on a small farm that has goats (!?), calves, sheep, chickens and produce (man, I'm excited for the goats! For some reason, I view them as really cute, sweet kittens.). In Colorado, we will be staying on a 60 acre farm that has chickens, cattle, lamb and a very large vegetable production. I cannot wait to get to these farms. I'm looking forward to the hard work and being part of these people's family, even if it is for just a short time. Hopefully we will add a couple more farms to the list.

Brooke