Hi There!
Just joined WarmShowers after hearing a lot about it in the past.
My finance and I live in Portland, Oregon. We are preparing for his 2nd cross country tour, and my first. We'll be taking a train down to San Francisco at the start of March. We'll bike down the coast to San Diego, and then head East on the Southern Tier until we make it to the Great Rivers route, and then head up north to Ohio.

We are cycling across the country to our wedding that's taking place at the end of May, 2010.

I'm very excited and very nervous. I know this will be a great challenge for me, but I plan to accomplish it with as little freak-outs, broken bones, and tears as possible.

We plan to camp along the way, but hopefully with the help of this forum, we'll be able to take a few warm showers too :)

Looking forward to meeting some new people and experiencing great adventures.

Also- if anyone has done this route as a beginner to touring, any advice would be appreciated. We'll be touring with Arkel bags, I have a Soma Smoothie ES with great campy components, and a brooks saddle.

****If anyone has used Arkel bags, we are still holding out hope for finding them used!!****
**Also looking for used Adventure Cycling maps (Pacific Coast, southern tier, great rivers)**

Best wishes,
Kaede