Rapid City, SD

Heaps of inadequately sized cardboard boxes clutter the garage floor. Surely and Will wait patiently as we hastily throw together the last remaining gear items and prepare to wrap them in a cozy packaging for the long journey that awaits. Before the bicycling begins, we're scheduled to bounce around on all forms of carbon-emitting transport before eliminating our emissions altogether, save for a few fumes from the campstove.

As a consequence of budget travel, we're first required to drive to Denver before flying to Tampa Bay, a flight that's sure to incur additional luggage expenses. The transportation priorities of this country become perfectly clear (if they aren't already) when we each get slapped with a hundred dollar fee, not for added weight, but for the contraptions that lie inside our slender cardboard boxes. If our powers of persuasion are turned on at 5:00 am, we'll hopefully slide through under the assumption that we're traveling musicians carting around sound equipment, hoping they won't ask the name of our band. If so, we'll be prepared with "We Surely Will," but unable to perform due to a strained vocal chord.

Touching down in Tampa, we'll spend the evening with our cousin before hopping a train to Miami where we'll crash-in on another friend. The complexities of our departure will be well worth the time spent with good people, but considering these detours, I question the retention of our budget. The final leg from Miami will be the last of our exhaustive arrival sequence in Quito, where the formal adventure begins. From there, improvisation will reign, and we'll assume a reverential role to spontaneity. With the framework established, there will be ample room to be swept by whatever currents capture our senses. What is known will provide the circumstance to discover all that is unknown in a self-propelled journey involving bicycles and Andes, a simple equation solved only by experimentation.