Fortunate to be unfortunate

Just when you think you got everything sorted out...shit happens.
Exactly 2 weeks before my 620 mile touring trip, my rear hub (axle in rear wheel) started to make a funny clonking/clinking noise in sync with my cadence.
Closer inspection revealed that the free-wheel or cassette-hub decided to cave in under the humongous amount of pedal torque produced by the Dutch Diesel ;o)

Anyway. Humour on the side, the free-wheel hub is the part of your rear axle to which your gear-cluster is mounted to. So that is the unfortunate part. The fortunate part is that this didn't happen somewhere between San Francisco and San Diego!

The Cassette-hub

 Still, this needed to get resolved ASAP. I called the vendor of my bike, and they where happy to replace the hub. I could get a new one, and get my money refunded once the bad one was received. I asked if I could get a different one (Shimano FH-M756 instead of the original SRAM 506) and pay for the difference. This was not a problem, and with 2 day shipping, it should arrive on Thursday.
In parallel called my LBS (Local Bike Shop) to make sure they had the right spokes for relacing my wheel with this new hub. They did, so that is covered too.
So the current plan is:

• Hub arriving on Thursday
• Drop off wheel and hub on Friday
• Pick up relaced wheel on Saturday or Sunday
• Next week a few commutes into the office to check if all is OK

Cross your fingers!