It wasn’t long ago that I was sitting in a small RV van with my new friend Dan after arriving in Byron Bay, and pondering what my next moves would be. As had been typical of late, and of my life quite frankly, I had an idea of what to do, and a day or two later I was on the road again. That journey brought me north to Surfer’s Paradise, where I hung for a few days and continued plotting my course.

Nature seems to have a different plan in mind than my own of cycling all over the eastern Australian coastline, as its been doing nothing but raining 4 out of 5 days I’ve been here. So, instead of staying put, I’ve been constantly on the move. Taking only enough time in a place to do some laundry, and wait for it to dry before hitting the road again. I finally had my first clothing-casualty, well, second really, where I lost one of my socks. I dunno where it disappeared to, but it must’ve happened Saturday night when I fell asleep instead of going out with the crew. Oh well, these things happen, and those socks had a good run of over a year.

So, how do I find myself now on the back of a greyhound bus bound for Brisbane? Just last night in my hostel I had a chat with a young bloke named Cambel from England who had just returned from a trip to Japan. Of course, he was gushing about his recent trip there, and it was only a matter of a few minutes before I knew what the next leg of my journey entailed. I could get a cheap flight (less than $200) from Cairns to Osaka, then make my way to the West Coast of the US where I could probably stop in SF en route to LA/OC. Perfection. I’ll get in to Laguna around the end of this month and hit the bike hard for the next several weeks until I ship off for Iceland for the race. If I time it right, I’ll be able to stop in SF and see some dear friends before heading back down south. I even think a flight from Tokyo to SF will be significantly cheaper than one to LA, which will be awesome!