Mountains of paperwork

My days have been a whirlwind lately of paperwork and getting documents together for franks estate, mine and prepping for my trip.

I finished the inventory of his estate and he owes more in debt that what his assets are so I will have to wait and see how that plays out next year.

I decided to prepare my will paperwork as well. As I can’t take anything for granted anymore.

I received my passport, international drivers permit and Andrew/Laura booked my flight. It will be a straight shot to Johannesburg, South Africa. A 16 hour flight. I hope to sleep through most of it but I will just have to wait and see. I chose one of the aisle seats with the middle 3 seat row. I usually love a window but I figured I may need to stand, stretch, and use the facilities easier.

Andrew and Laura will be flying out about 10 days before I do so they can prep and do final logistics on the ground there in Africa.

I also received the glass art spheres that Crescent Memorial Art Glass created for me and I also bought a butterfly pendent for his mom since she was missing one. I plan on only taking one sphere with me, just in case. The other sits on top of his ashes and the colors are striking with the sunlight from the windows.

The orbs are much larger than I anticipated, I was thinking more like 3″ around vs 3″ across the top. It’s a little larger than a baseball and heavy. I’ll be traveling with it inside a crown royal bag. It’s actually the perfect size and really soft in the inside so less scratches. I’ll bubble wrap around it for safe measure.

I can’t explain how much of a comfort the orbs have been. Just to have something to hold on to or sit in my lap as I read a book or do paperwork. Having him with me helps me feel peaceful and more secure.

I have been having a good couple of days.

Staying busy as Work, hiring more staff and going to the gym a couple times a week. I even broke down and bought new work out/hiking shoes. My pinky toes were almost out of my old set. Stupid wide feet.

I also got my travel medical done, updated vaccines and got some prescriptions for stuff to take so I don’t get sick while I’m over there. I just went to the local CVS minute clinic. There is no way that I could have gotten it done as quickly with the VA. If I had been able to be seen that day at all since everything is treated as a triage when you don’t have an appointment. It cost me but I feel like it was worth it.

I had coffee with Mareli, the woman I met at the BMW course and she let me borrow 3 books by Lois Pryce. She writes about her solo motorcycle adventures. She road from Alaska to the tip of South America, from England to Cape Town at the tip of South Africa and also journeyed through Iran. The books were pretty good and informative about being a female rider. I won’t be going solo like she did and on a much larger bike as Andrew is getting a BMW 1200GS and 800 for us to alternate on. Depending on how well I do on the bigger/heavier bike on sand.

I haven’t been sleeping well since I started to dream again so I am constantly dragging. I’ve been getting away from drinking coffee and anything with caffeine. Also eating healthier and trying to work on my leg strength as much as possible before the trip. Getting my quads and glutes ready for all day riding!

I’m not nervous yet but need to keep checking off things from my to do list so I can stay on track.

One major thing I checked off was getting an emergency gps device. I got the Garmin Inreach Explorer.

It has a two way messaging system that uses satellites instead of cell towers and you can post your status to some social media networks. I’ve been playing with it to make sure I know how to use it and have been customizing one button preset messages.

” I haven’t been eaten by lions or run over by elephants yet….”

“we are stopped for the night and safe. I love you and I miss you.”

So as long as I send my mom and limited few others updates fairly often, she won’t worry as much. Since I also enabled it to show my gps coordinates on a map so they can track my progress from the message. It wasn’t cheap but the emergency sos features sold me. What price can you put on being able to get help when your life depends on it?

I also reactivated my Instagram account and had Laura start one for Uuzilo. She doesn’t know how to use it yet but that’s what YouTube is for. So if you use it, look up Uuzilo or myself at teamdangercurves and follow our adventures.

So much to do and so little time…..back at it, i suppose.