It's official: JJxJ is ON!

Once again, the title of my post is a quote from Jody.

What caused him to say (or rather, type) "It's official: JJxJ is ON!" was the fact that both of us bought plane tickets to Wakkanai today, meaning now there's no turning back!

We're going to meet at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on the morning of September 13 and we'll be flying to Hokkaido together. I was hoping to be there for Home Slice when he arrives in Japan for the first time, but his flight from LA lands really early in the morning, so it's pretty inconvenient for me. The poor guy will just have to take on Tokyo (well, the airport, anyway) by himself. I'm not worried about him, though. He's a big boy, figuratively speaking at least (doh!).

As you can imagine, there's still a ton of planning left to do for our ride. Some of what we still have to figure out includes our exact route, how many kilometers we want to (have to?) cover every day, where we are going to stay, what to do with our bike boxes after we arrive in Hokkaido, and how we get (back) to my place after the ride.

Luckily, there's still plenty of time to figure all of those things out. We're also well aware of the fact that no matter how well we plan the ride, some curve balls are bound to be thrown at us. For instance, we might encounter bad weather, we might get horribly lost, and one or both of us might get sick. That's why we are going to try to make a Plan B and even a Plan C to go along with Plan A.

The two of us are pumped, however, and really looking forward to a fun, though lightning-quick ride through Japan.

Speaking of lightning-quick rides... This isn't exactly the Race Across America, but I'm really curious if there's an official record for fastest bike ride from Soya to Sata.

Maybe there isn't one.

Maybe Home Slice and White Rice will set it.

Wouldn't that be cool?