Day 0: Sky Mall

Did you know carbon fiber wallets can supposedly help protect against credit card fraud? Or that you can buy rear view cameras and solar powered USB chargers for your bike? Sky Mall never fails to entertain me. We took off from Bradley at 5:40 pm EST, onto our layover in Dallas. We did, however, have to part ways with some of our beloved CO2 cartridges. As we were waiting to board, a very large TSA agent approached us and said in, as you can imagine, the most friendly voice: "Who's Dan." They explained that I had hazmat items in my checked luggage that needed to be confiscated- I know my clothes may stink after a few days out in the mountains, but surely I didn't have anything that bad yet. Unfortunately, our CO2 cartridges that we can use for fixing flats on the fly had to be disposed of. No big deal. A few minutes later, the same agent came over again, heading in our direction. Great start to the trip, I thought. Thankfully though, he was looking for someone else. Maybe they had some real goodies in their bag. We met a woman in the Dallas airport who runs a lab that conducts research for multiple myeloma. She was excited to hear about our trip, and hopes to get in contact with researchers through Lea's. We landed in San Francisco a little while ago, and are just about to call it a night. Tomorrow we'll pick up our bikes at Pacific Bikes, cruise around the city for a bit, and stop at our first destination in Sausalito. We're expecting some good weather and we'll have some pictures from our first day on the road. For now though, good night! (I wonder if Sky Mall's Ultimate Sleeping Kit is any good...)