KR day 2

Woke up after a night locked in our cabin. Matt and I are sorta paranoid about malaria. We all applied sprays and wore long sleeves and were cautious about exposing ourselves to mosquitoes, but Matt and I basically didn't want to leave the cabin at night for fear of letting any bloodsuckers tailgate back in with us. 

I also ran a traditional snake incense coil, which is very common in China:

Shown pre- and post- burning. Overnight seems to have gone fine -- mosquitoes within our chamber of secrets. 

A view of the courtyard:

You can see the braai grill there. We're planning on doing a braai one of these nights, depending on when we get to camp and how familiar we feel with settling in. I spotted a few animals in the sand of the yard -- a guinea fowl and this guy:

KR night 1

Here's the list of animals we saw today:

Elephants

White Rhino

Lion

Leopard

Giraffe

Kudu

Hippo

Croc

Waterbuck

Water buffalo

Warthog

Impala (these are like the squirrels or pigeons of the park)

Baboon

Vervet monkey

Steenbok

Honey badger

As you can see, Kruger is full of wildlife. After we got off the plane and into the rental car, we started looking for animals in our self-drive safari. There were quite a few deftly spotted animals, but the showcase had to be the herd of elephants resting roadside -- they couldn't be missed. They stood under the trees from the hot sun, flapping ears to cool off. 

It's hard to describe the majesty of these animals. Their skin has a velvety rolling softness that doesn't show up in the videos or pictures I've seen. I got this one shot of the peaceful expression on an elephant's face:

The obvious thrill is seeing wildlife face to face, but I think the one I enjoy more is sensing what kind of sentience lies beneath each animal's surface. With the baboons, you can tell their near-sapience in the subtlety of their every movement and action. With the elephants, the family dynamics are obviously so strong. 

A few more animals we ran into on the self-drive:

That vignetting is real -- sometimes animals wee far enough away that I had to shoot with the phone through a binocular lens. The effect would be really cheesy if it weren't simply what I could get. 

After we arrived at the Lower Sabie camp, we immediately turned around and hopped onto a guided tour from sunset into night. 

We saw quite a few new animals. The driver/guide, Lunga, said that animals really don't react to the bus as a unit, even when flashes of light are coming out of it. 

Only lions can be so relaxed sleeping out in the middle of the road. We passed this pair later in the night, driving past them and then following them for a few minutes. The lions truly were indifferent to our presence, doing their thing as we spotlit them and snapped away. It's strange to see an apex predator capable of killing from merely 10ft away. I felt the same when an elephant crossed the road in front of us and regarded us slightly before continuing. These two lionesses were sitting like Sphinxes before lolling like house cats:

I enjoyed the guided tour mostly for the driver's expert experience in spotting and explaining the animals' behavior. 

We ran suddenly upon some rhinos, 2 female and 1 male. The male was trying to herd the two females in estrus to territory away from other males. They would frequently pause and have deliberations about what to do. It was fascinating to hear the driver explain the grunts and feinted charges. I sadly don't have a great picture of this chase:

Matt and I noticed that Lunga greeted another employee with "jambo" before chatting. I should have asked him what language it was, since that's a greeting in Swahili. Lunga seemed at least familiar with Zulu, but it was beyond me what tribe he might be. 

KR day 1

We fly to Skukuza, pick up a rental, drive to Kruger, and settle into our safari leg of the trip. 

There are huge enclosed camps with cabins inside the park. That's where we're staying each night. In the day we'll self drive around the park or walk in guided tours. 

Not sure what the wifi situation will be. Could be a blackout like DK. 

My legs are pretty sore. 

Misc DK videos

A sample of the technical work we had to do:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=1grsXap8L6E

I think I saw this shot in a movie:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xFRA5JRloi8

How quickly mist can take you over in the DK:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mz_G_RNDya4

Also featuring my labored breathing. 

Zululand

Natal Drakensberg National Park is in the state of KwaZulu-Natal, named after the Zulu natives and Portuguese colonists. I realized I'd been resident of Mississippi and Massachusetts, so maybe it isn't surprising that native languages can survive in major geographic names. 

While the DK hike has been almost 100% about coming to grips with nature, one of my personal reasons for visiting South Africa was to try to better observe the lives of black Africans living in such a culturally and socioeconomically diverse place. My observations are sadly limited to the stretch of rural Zulu villages lining the R74 into DK. 

- people living in very basic housing. The old house is the round thatch-roofed huts. 

The new house is a single-room gabled or slant roof built of bricks or cinder blocks. 

Some even have satellite (not to mention a great skyline):

I saw both types without doors, though huts without doors were far more common. I've seen a similar standard of living in parts of rural China

- people walk everywhere. That seems to be the default mode of transportation. Sometimes they wait by the road for a taxi or even try to hitchhike. I saw a few bicycles, including this one:

I've donated to World Bike Relief before, and it was cool to see these Water Buffalos in action, courtesy of Qhubeka. Two kids decked out in suit and tie were coming home from school on these bikes. 

Folks don't seem to ride quickly anywhere, but they don't seem to be in a hurry when they're walking, either. I saw

two people running out of hundreds of pedestrians.

- people are dressed immaculately. Generally, they choose bright colors and solid or basic patterns. Despite the clay that is everywhere, their clothes are always spotless. I've not seen that kind of fastidiousness anywhere else. I felt weird taking photos of the abundant walkers, so I don't have a lot of pictures for this. 

- I wonder how much these Zulus care about the lifestyles of other people from other societies, even from their own country, whose political boundaries probably have minimal effect on them. Darren said that apartheid was not a big problem outside of the cities. Many kids waves at us; Darren honked cheerfully past a few huts with resting onlookers; the majority of people walking along the road would acknowledge our presence as neutrally as possible, moving to the shoulder as we came around the bend. 

DK hike day 3 night

After a moderate scare in the form of Darren's Land Rover Defender not starting (it ended up being his not setting the choke correctly on ignition, though despite all my car savvy, I couldn't help him), we have driven back from the DK to JB. On the way, we stopped at Nando's. I had the chicken burger and the 5 wing meal. It was good. I have to try a spicy chicken burger.

Breakfast was FutureLife, a kind of high performance grits. In strawberry flavor, it can favorably be described as pre-chewed Special K with Red Berries:

Today's hiking was the most difficult, taking on the big climb we missed yesterday due to rain. There were lots of spots that were more technically challenging (dangerous) and physically exhausting than yesterday. Having never hiked any trail that required more than walking steps, I was pretty wary of going too far, especially with Darren stopping for long pauses to decide whether certain routes were even possible. I felt like I was being simultaneously told it was dangerous and that I shouldn't quit. The lack of pictures from these hard parts is again simply because I was using every limb to keep from falling off the mountain. 

This is an example of something we had to scale:

After slogging through a lot of hillside grass and up three of those rock face walls, we reached the top of Cathedral Peak. DK denied us a clear view:

Then we descended back into the mist:

Going down was easy for a while, but I managed to overheat and dehydrate. Then I rolled my ankle, which made the remaining kms even tougher. 

I think I had a decent time going up those climbs, but I definitely had no idea what this hike involved. The Soul Adventures company bills itself as guided mountaineering. I think that is far more accurate. This is not the furthest I've been physically, but it's close. 

DK hike day 3 morning

Today we're going to see if we can't get up to Cathedral Peak. It doesn't seem to have rained overnight, so things should be safer, but no guarantees. We go back over that staircase rock hill formation, get up to the peak, and then descend back into town. From there, back to Johannesburg.

Overnight, I built up a bit of a headache. Could be the altitude -- reminds me of the headache I was getting in Tibet. 

I could really use a shower. 

DK hike day 2 night

Elevation: 3000m

Chilling inside the tent after some grueling hiking. The last major formation we hurdled was this pretty steep decline:

This was the view upon the start of the descent:

The mist helped cover up the kilometer-long slope to the valley floor. 

This and the climb before it were the most challenging parts of the hike today. It was raining the hardest, and the rocks were the loosest. It was dangerous if you weren't paying attention, but manageable if you were. So of course I was paying attention. 

I don't have pictures of the obstacles to illustrate the difficulty, but I couldn't recommend this hike to everyone. Matt says so far, it's not as bad as the last day of Kilimanjaro. But there's lots of spots where you need to make the right moves to proceed safely, and not everyone might be comfortable with that level of commitment. 

In between all the mist, we were still treated to the stunning Drakensberg landscape:

In the upper right of the last picture, where the peak is reaching into the clouds -- our cave is on the back side. It's more of an overhang, which is why we're in the tents. Poor Gabe and Darren have to suffer with a wet tent and a host of steady drips hammering down. 

While Matt and I were chilling in the tent, a few Lesotho men walked by. Gabe described their gear -- wooden walking sticks, rubber galoshes, only one guy with a backpack. Darren had them pegged as smugglers, though he was surprised by their choice of route. They were making fast time trying to get to wherever they needed to go. It made me appreciate how rugged the land is, that it simply denies A-to-B travel. The Zulu name for the Drakensberg is uKhalamba, the Barrier of Spears. Darren says that Tolkien, born in South Africa, based the Misty Mountains on this landscape. Wikipedia says otherwise fairly specifically, unfortunately. In either case, there was no way the movies could have been filmed here -- the terrain is inaccessible at that scale. Nor, I think, would all the people who enjoy using this land want that kind of attention. 

Dinner was gnocchi with salami. 

DK hike day 2 morning

Late night: we didn't pitch tents, on Darren's advice. This left us intimately in contact with nature. 

Overnight, we all woke up a few times from the fitful rain, bouts of cool wind easing over our faces, or having to relieve ourselves. One time, Matt asked Gabe to spotlight him to see if there was anything on his head. I'm pretty sure it was just a moth at worst, because that's what was on my head at that moment. 

The lighting is such that looking down at my feet makes it seem like we're in the mouth of a floating whale, moored in a highland valley, passing through the night. 

 

The rain is a real change of plans. We were hoping to make a hard technical climb up to Cathedral Peak, but the long rain last night might make some paths simply too dangerous to use. 

The mist cover also takes away from the wide vistas we'd hoped to enjoy. 

I don't think it's raining at present, but I'm sure that's in the picture for the rest of today. 

The nature of our link to civilization is also different from the bike tour. Then, we usually had a very thin connection at most points, good for getting texts and checking emails. But we less frequently had wifi. 

Now, there'll be spots where even Gabe's international roaming phone will fail to get a signal. Though we should be passing through wifi points more often. My posts will come more sporadically, but I plan to use more pictures per posting, since I won't have to upload them over EDGE. 

DK hike day 1 night

Toothpicks are abundant in South Africa. They come in your biltong packs; they serve them with your bill. 

We got up at 4:30 and met our hike guide outside the hotel gates. Darren used to have a desk job, and had that classic moment of clarity. He started this touring company to always be traveling and seeing sights around the world. He's always "chilled out," as he says. 

We drove two legs southish, catching a lot of rural views through Zulu country. It reminded me in many ways of rural China. 

There were many tiny villages or neighborhoods with round thatched huts as well as more modern leaned tin roof houses. Some houses even had solar panels up -- traces of our modern age have crept into even this languid, distinctly non-Western society. South Africa has a lot of lessons to teach about multiculturalism. 

Folks walk around everywhere. You see the occasional hitchhiker. Seldom see bikes, even though they'd seem very practical to use. 

An old reliable Toyota Pickup. 

This ornery goat was on the road. 

A few views from the breathtaking hike:

Cathedral Peak in the distance, to the right of the bell-shaped col. 

After this glamor shot, we tried to stepping stone the creek. Only Darren made it across without dunking shoes in. This is a real hike. 

Our base camp, after a short but intensely paced hike:

Yep, an open faced cave. We're sitting here resting up for the much longer hike tomorrow, which Darren says is much harder than today's. 

The White Beast

When I was in late elementary school, I read some scifi book about an alien called the Round Beast, a hyper intelligent being. In my imagination, I fashioned a similar monster called the White Beast. It was a carnivore that hunted you at night, peering out from the tree line as you drove your car through the darkness. You'd always chalk up seeing it on the edge of your vision to tricks of light. But it would be there, prowling the night. 

In these almost Jurassic landscapes in the Drakensberg, I can picture the White Beast standing atop ridges, studying its prey and then padding off with leonine leisure. 

How at home it would be surveying the V-valley of its dominion. 

Night soil

Night soil -- a euphemism for human waste. If that definition makes you queasy, skip this post. 

The South African equivalent of the National Park Service wants you to be 150ft or further from any running water when you piss or poo. You have to fully bury your dumps. This makes sense, as the streams are where you top off your water supply when you're far from civilization. And by far, I guess I mean a couple hours' hike. Darren was quizzing the few hikers we crossed about water conditions up in the mountains, planning for how easily we could resupply. 

Practically speaking, you want to do this during the day when you can see where you're digging and not walk off the trail and down a cliff. 

Something I ate really disagreed with me, so let's say I now have plenty of experience with walking away from camp and digging and filling holes, aided against the pitch dark with only a headlamp. This all plays into that "I don't really like camping" part of me. At least it wasn't raining when I had to go. 

Still there's nothing like being out in the dark wild of Africa with nothing between you and nature. 

DK hike day 1 morning

Accommodations at the Avatior were good -- our 3 beds were split on two rooms, the second of which we discovered a few minutes into unpacking:

https://vine.co/v/OYXaHnEzVdm

The rooms were outfitted with a cool chair:

Dinner was pricy for what it was but still good. I honestly couldn't tell whether it was Western or standard South African fare. Local ginger beer:

Gabe and I spent a while deciphering the rules differences between rugby union and rugby league while watching a match on TV. Need to establish that foundation before we branch out to rugby sevens and Australian football. 

I was woken up overnight by the drumming rain:

https://vine.co/v/OYXZZ7Yr3Od

Reminds me of a certain Toto song. 

Speaking of weather, I'm not sure I'm packed for every kind of weather, but I am ready to face it. Between eschewing cellular-data based weather apps when out of wifi zones and the sparsity of locations publishing weather data, we don't enjoy the accuracy of forecasts that we have at home. It's more adventurous this way. 

I'm not terribly worried about the physical demands of the hike, even though the most steady exercise I've been getting is the 7mi of bike commuting. Expect some complaints about my dogs barking. 

The flight over

The flight over was relatively uneventful. Oh, except I got a 1000000 in Bejeweled 2:

I don't think I need to play it anymore. 

Apparently movies are now on-demand on flights, which will give me something to do on the flight back. 

The dinner and breakfast were wholly unremarkable. 

Checked out of customs without fuss, though seeing the infrared Ebola scanners was cool. 

Cop dealing with a car that drove onto a traffic island:

The hotel for the night has very a unprivate bathroom:

Acronyms

Brevity might be the soul of modern American wit. Saying Johannesburg in full wears on you. 

To that end, we've been using acronyms for all the locales we're visiting. I don't know if these are used anywhere else, but I will for the blog posts. 

JB -- Johannesburg

PE -- Port Elizabeth

CT -- Cape Town

DK -- Drakensberg

KR -- Kruger

Others that I might acronymize on the way:

Plettensberg

Stellenbosch

the packs they carried

For me, this is the decade-overdue backpacking trip. I bought the pack at REI and filled it up, mostly with clothes:

62L and maybe 80% full.

Gabe's super-Gucci Deuter pack:

 

featuring his cat Grizz. He totally stole that dual bottle setup from me, btw.

Matt's panic-shopped enormous pack (his old one was "only" 45L):

Instead of giving you an obsessive rundown of what we're packing, I'll go with the most wise and most frivolous things:

	Matt	Gabe	Meng
most wise	first aid kit	convertible pants	toilet paper
most frivolous	scuba mask	2nd pair of sneakers	driving gloves

Trip goals

• eat as many different kinds of biltong as possible
• try to find local folk art to bring back
• avoid having to wear the legionnaire's cap
• spot a penguin on the coast
• find a Parktown prawn in Johannesburg
• see a Great White
• count the number of times Gabe says "Oy" in exasperation
• force Matt to do the math
• get within 10ft of any kind of mammal at a national park
• say Kaapstad instead of Cape Town at least once
• drive on the left side of the road 
• put our Luke's Joint sticker up somewhere

On the eve of the South Africa trip

Tomorrow around noon, I'm heading out to the airport for a 2.5 week trip around South Africa. It's the same crew from this little excursion:

After months of accelerating discussion and planning, everything is set. We just need to start.

In Clockers, Richard Price makes an observation about the guilty and the innocent staying in jail overnight. The innocent, not knowing why they've been detained or exactly how they'll free themselves, fret away the whole night. The guilty, knowing exactly the score, sleep soundly.

Right now, I'm still on the edge between those two states. Between worry and surety. Between anticipation and apprehension.

I will try to sleep easy tonight. After I finish packing, of course.

9/19: in San Fran at last

When we hit the Golden Gate Bridge: http://mengs-blog.blogspot.com/2013/09/919-we-made-it.html

[1 year anniversary note:
I don't really remember the details of this day's riding. Towns and cities were packed closer and closer as we closed in on the Bay Area. The landscape went from rural to suburban to urban. I remember around Fairfax, the GPS and route map really disagreed, though we knew to keep going south, so we didn't end up too lost.

The final stretch onto Golden Gate and then to Drake's was miserable. I was incredibly drained. It was cold. We were fighting a headwind all the way up the winding road leading to the bridge. I gritted my teeth, got mad, and finished that climb. In the city, the GPS was hilariously unsympathetic about routing flat routes. There's Market or some other long avenue that would have delivered us straight there as flat as possible, but instead we went up and down the famed hilly San Francisco streets. Apparently, we passed by the Full House house, except I was too busy looking down grinding away to notice it.]

Pics of the ride: http://mengs-blog.blogspot.com/2013/09/919-misc-pics.html

Ok, we hadn't actually made it. We still had to bike 5mi into the city. I had Matt Drake's address, but we were at the mercy of my GPS's routing to get us there. 5mi with maybe 2mi of climbing. Ugh.

Just as we were about to pull up to Drake's place, he swoops by us on his bike, recognizing us at the last minute. He led us the remaining few blocks. Kind of a cool end to our ride. I was shattered when Drake said there was a no-climb solution from the Golden Gate to his place.

We crawled off into the Mission to have some burritos. They were excellent as I knew they'd be, blunted as my tastes have been by being in Boston. Just check out their salsa selection:

I ate more than I should have, I'm pretty sure.

80mi and 5000ft of climbing to end the last day of the tour. Wow. We did it. 1000mi, give or take. 17 days pedaling, 2 days resting. This is the Adventure Cycling Association image for the Pacific Coast tour route:

That was me. I was there. I saw it. I'm glad I did it.

9/19: pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/105909573807230408134/BikeTour919?authkey=Gv1sRgCNaBhqLK78KOwwE

Piece of Red Cloth

By chance, I heard Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz again recently. The plaintive voice, the subversive social commentary, the folk sound -- I'd heard this before somewhere.

Took me a while to realize I was thinking of Cui Jian's Piece of Red Cloth. Cui Jian was the pioneer of Chinese rock. His music is unique and not what I would call timeless. Some of the sounds are flat out bizarre, evoking a wide range from karaoke parlor to 80s new wave to Chinese folk.
Cui's voice is even harder to describe to a non-Chinese listener. Yes, it's gravelly and harsh. But on top of that, Cui adds his own unusual vocal stylings. His delivery sometimes wanders into Falco's hallmark staccatos or Randy Newman croaks territory. I would say his music is an acquired taste. But here's Red Cloth. Listen to see if you can get why it reminded me of Mercedes Benz.

My interest in Cui Jian started as curiosity for his role in the Chinese democracy movement of the 80s. I tried to study the meaning behind his songs. He was known for penning lyrics that have a convenient surface meaning and a deeper, critical meaning. One that the government would regard as "counter-revolutionary." A few comments:

• this double layering of meaning is a longstanding tradition throughout Chinese literature. I suppose that doesn't say flattering things Chinese government over the millenia
• something similar goes on in Born in the USA and Mercedes Benz. Though you could easily argue that the overt imagery in Born in the USA is simply ignored by people who think of it as a flat out anthem to patriotism. Anyways, people can and did enjoy Cui Jian's songs just for their rock value, and not necessarily for any clever hidden messages.
• for whatever reason, Cui Jian never got punished as much as other writers and artists. It's not like the lyrics were so coded and cryptic that the government censors couldn't figure out what he was saying. So he was generally able to write and perform and be a success over that critical time period.

Back to Piece of Red Cloth. This song talks about 2 people, misfortune, and blind loyalty. The color red can symbolize love and happiness, which it does when reading the lyrics casually. But red is also a symbol for the Communist government. The protagonist of the song accepts a red blindfold and willingly follows the other person, for better or for worse. Even when it's for worse, the narrator doesn't cry outright foul, but instead still takes a tone of forgiveness.

In few words, Cui Jian gives his very nuanced view on the Chinese people in relation to their government. There's a lot of details that mesh with post 1950s history. I could RapGenius all day on it, but something else distracted me.

If you don't know Chinese, you're missing out on a huge component of this song. It's a shame. And some other guy agreed. He made his own English cover of the song. While I kinda don't want to link it because I'm about to slam him, I think you have to decide for yourself. My beefs with it:

• opens with something that sounds maybe a bit racist. I know I raised my eyebrow.
• I'm not sure who to compare this voice to. But it won't be a compliment. While not all aspects of how Cui Jian sings could ever be emulated in another language, this cover dude makes no attempt at the force and gruffness that Cui Jian has.
• the translation is extremely literal. It's not only distracting, but its meter means it can't be fit to the original music.
• some kids (in Chinese class) decided to do their own exact rendition of this cover. 

I dunno, the poor quality of this cover really bothers me. To the point where I think I have to make my own cover. I've spend the last hour doing my own translation. Anyone who read the Odyssey or Iliad in high school must remember what the teacher said about the challenges of translating -- balancing meaning vs meter and rhyme, establishing a cohesive flow, all that. I haven't done a perfect job because I know a perfect job is impossible. My main goal here is a beat-perfect translation that can be sung over Cui Jian's original music. I've taken quite a few liberties with the verse meanings, at one point losing the double meaning and exposing Cui Jian's intent.

So now I just need to make a guitar buddy do an acoustical track of this song. And I guess I'll sing over it? This is gonna be harder than when I tried to reconstruct a mashup I heard on the radio without knowing the first thing about editing music.

Here's what I've got so far:

那天是你 用一块 红布

remember that day? you covered up: my eyes

蒙住我双眼 也蒙 住了天

that piece of red cloth blotted out the sky

你问我 看见了什么

you asked me: now what do you see?

我说 我看见了幸福

i said i see: what makes me happy

这个感觉 真让我舒服

this feeling puts me really at ease

它让我忘掉 我没地儿住

so i can forget that i've got no roof

你问我 还要去何方

you asked me are you going this way

我说要 上你的路

i told you yes i'd go with you

看不见你 也 看不见路

i can't see you; i can't see the road

我的手 也被你攥住

took my hand and wouldn't let go

你问我 还在想什么

you asked what: i was thinkin about

我说 我要让 你做主

i said i'd leave it up to you

我感觉 你不是铁

i can feel: your beating heart

却象铁 一样的 强和烈

your blood in my hand rushes fierce and strong

我感觉 你身上有血

i can tell: your body's red guilt

因为你 的手 是热呼呼

all just from: a touch of your hand

这个感觉 真让我舒服

this feeling puts me really at ease

它让我忘掉 我没地儿住

so i can forget that i've got no roof

你问我 还要去何方

you asked me are you going this way

我说要 上你的路

i told you yes i'd go with you

我感觉 这不是荒野

i know that: we're stranded out here

却看不见 这土地 已经干裂

my throat is parched just like this cracked up earth

我感觉 我要喝点水

i confess: i'm dying of thirst

可你的嘴 将我的嘴堵住

but all i find is the touch of your lips

我感觉 这不是荒野

i know that: we're stranded out here

却看不见 这土地 已经干裂

my throat is parched just like this cracked up earth

我感觉 我要喝点水

i confess: i'm dying of thirst

可你的嘴 将我的嘴堵住

but all i find is the touch of your lips

我不能走我也不能哭

now i can't leave, and now i can't cry 

因为 我身体 已经干枯

cuz what's left of me is just my bones

我要 永远这样 陪伴着你

and now forever i'll be by your side

因为我 最知 道你的痛苦

cuz only i can truly know your pain

Tips for bike touring

Rule 1: protect yourself at all times
Rule 2: protect your fellow riders, except when in conflict with Rule 1
Rule 3: protect your equipment, except when in conflict with Rule 1 or 2

You should have 2 water bottles. You can use each to spray the nozzle of the other to clean it before drinking.

Gas stations frequently run deals on Gatorade/Powerade for 2/$3 or $2.50. It's not a replacement for water, but it is pretty cheap.

If you hand wash your clothes, rig them on the bike the next day to dry. If it's sunny. 

Whenever you have a free moment in the sun, bring out your tent supplies and air them out. It pays to have them toasty dry as much as possible. 

Figure out an organization system for your panniers and stick to it. That'll help for when you need to find something in an emergency, like a sudden downpour. 

Plastic bags are great for organization, but they only come in so many colors and aren't that durable. Think about getting a few camping specific sacks for essentials.

Here's one way I use plastic bags -- I have a sleepwear bag. Inside are my camp/tent clothes and an empty plastic bag. I take it and my towel to the shower. I wash all my cycling clothes and put them in the empty bag. I tote both bags back to the bike. If it's not wet out, I array the wet clothes on my bike. I stuff the empty tent clothes bag in my tent for changing in the morning. 

It's all about efficiency. Even if you're in great shape and have trained a lot, it always pays to take the easy way out on tour. Every little edge you can give yourself helps. When you let your form get sloppy, that's wasted energy. When you don't fully tuck in on a clear downhill, that's wasted energy. Obviously, you can't go crazy with obsessing about every single thing, but just try to identify tactics that will help you save energy.

Ride the white strip when it's safe. No cars, not wet, not on downhills. The paint is generally smoother than the surrounding pavement, which keeps you a bit more comfortable. And since it's smoother, you get a tiny bit less rolling resistance. After a few days, you'll be surprised how easily you can steer the bike between those 3 inches.

memories sliding from my youth

When I was 12, I went back to China for the first time since I emigrated. I visited the Great Wall where it wraps closest to Beijing. One of the parks there has a long metal slide. It goes like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvv1frWim1E&t=42s
It's an extremely open feeling, with clear danger for not keeping your cart under control. But the views are incredible.

If you watch enough into the video, you see that the guy eventually catches up to his friend, and then has to brake and slow down for the rest of the ride. That happened to me, too. I think I rode twice, getting jammed both times. I really wanted to ride without any impedance. I never got the chance.

When I was flying down the hills of the PCH, looking out at the ocean, I recalled that slide. This time, there were no obstacles. I could go as fast as I dared. It took almost 2 decades to fulfill that dream, but it happened. I think that was part of why I loved that day so much.