Wow, a lot of last minute details to take care of, and lots to remember with packing.  Here’s a photo of the mess before it’s loaded to the bike:

And here is the packing list; it’s a lot!

Two weeks out from the Sonic Divide. As I get closer I feel the necessity of this experience pulsing more and more powerfully.  It will be hard, but it will be joyful, and I must do it.  More than any other project I’ve pursued in recent years, I feel that this is somehow very right and very necessary.  I will be sore and it will hurt and there will be moments of terror and frustration and more than once I will wonder why I’m doing it.  Sometimes I ask that question almost daily as the preparations have continued, but what keeps me going is the sheer joy I feel pedaling that amazing bike in gorgeous natural settings, the quality of the music, and the way the those two things intersect and inspire each other.

The compositions are amazing.  That’s what happens when you work with great people.  The aesthetic diversity is astonishing, and the quality of the works is on par with the inventiveness.  And that inventiveness is what really  makes the experience of contemporary classical music so worthwhile.  If there is one generalization that can be made about human beings, it is that we are designed to create and innovate.  When that spirit is coupled with sustained physical effort in natural surroundings the spiritual power becomes nearly overwhelming.

Two weeks out.  I have all the music memorized and I’m physically ready to go. Only two weeks out . . .