From the original post:
Yeah, nobody wants that, but sometime it just happens on a steep hill climb in the middle of nowhere. Low gears help.

I think the only noticeable climb on 2-3 days distance from LA along the coast would be the Torrey Pines climb, which is about 1.5 miles at 5-6% to a ~420 ft. summit. That said, lower gears come in handy. I had short stretches yesterday at 10% at 100F (dry heat, though) on a mountain bike with semi-knobby tires from Santee to El Capitan Reservoir and back, then today from Santee to Dog Beach and back, too. (all mostly along the San Diego "river".) I also have several different sets of wheels of different sizes, rims widths, and spoke counts, between my gravel and mountain bike, since they are such deals..mostly they are PASAKs like this. I just hate to get that oilslick finish dusty on the Walker Trail to Lakeside along the river, though. I haven't had to true any of them yet. https://www.temu.com/1-set--aluminum...741441348.html

I suspect by now you are starting to re-think your choice of bike. If you really want that Trek, there is no reason that you can't later get another bike that has more weight capacity and lower gearing, unless you do not have the $ or the storage space for more.

Many people that own touring bikes mostly use it for other riding, actually doing bike touring when they are on vacation. A touring bike can serve very well as your sole bike too.

Someone on this thread mentioned the Trek Checkpoint, post 11. I know four or five people with that bike, they are pretty happy with it. A couple of them have had to replace bottom bracket bearings, but that was after a lot of miles.

Left Texas behind 20 years ago.
Now that's a phrase I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

Likewise I’m not communicating clearly sometimes. I am way past my cycling prime. And am back to the upright posture I had with a 1966 Schwinn five speed. My issue is mostly carrying weight so as to not adversely affect handling as well as having wheels to match the load. If a pile of weight goes on the rear wheel it should be up for it and the fewer spokes the more critical that the wheel is built well. There is absolutely no upside to low spoke count in recreational or non-racing application. Sure an assymeteical rim will help but Trek has a history with low spoke count wheels causing problems which I gather they have addressed with better quality control. If I wanted to play in the margins I’d rather have a robust wheel and a range of tires from super light to super tough.

Yes the fork is off an old Specialized. I know. I know. I’m risking asplosion of the bike but it works. Wheels are my build from a set of GT (Hadley) hubs that came into my co-op, DT Alpine spokes, and Velocity Dyads that were another donation.

The brakes are something I have on several bikes because they work with STI. All of the brakes are Paul Touring cantilevers.

My bike has hand built 32 spoke wheels and in 30+ years of recreational riding and some loaded touring, I only have to "true" the wheels every couple of years. True is in quotes because a 1/4 turn on two or three spoke nipples hardly counts.
If I were in your place, I would go for it. Although there is a wealth of terrific advice available here, the best tutor is your bike. Riding it will teach you what you want in terms of spokes, gearing, color etc.

My analysis of the Domane wheelset for touring is: they're not great.

The main issue is low spoke count. All other factors being equal, low spoke count wheels are always going to be weaker than higher spoke count wheels. It is possible to make a low spoke count wheel much stronger by 1) increasing rim height and 2) using butted spokes.

Which brings us to the secondary issues.

1) the rim doesn't seem to be particularly high profile. The rim is probably not stiff enough to properly counter the low spoke count, which will make the wheel inherently weak.

2) the spokes are straight gauge. Double (or triple) butted spokes (ie. thinner in the middle) are stronger than straight gauge spokes which have a constant cross section along the length of the spoke. The added strength of thinned spokes is counter intuitive, but thinner spokes stretch more, which give the wheel resiliency against loading. Even a high spoke count wheel can fail surprisingly easily if it is built with straight gauge spokes.

But in the end no one can say whether the Domane stock wheels will be ok or not. Personally I wouldn't trust them though.

that fork is most likely the exact same as on my bike, and at least has a steel (I think) steerer tube, and mine is now 15 years old and I have no concerns about it. I noticed you've done your signature red accents thing everywhere, including the nipples, which is fun. I like 32mm supremes, on the front I can run them at low 60s psi with a very light load (I'm about 135-140), so combined with the fork and tires, the bike has a really nice ride to it, while still rolling super well.

Despite your comment, if looking at other bikes, at least consider lower gearing that what is on this bike, which with a 50/34 and 11-34, lets say with 35mm tires, gives a low gear of a bit over 27 gear inches, which is not pleasant when carrying stuff on a bike and encountering hills.
There are some gravel type bikes with compact doubles, but only you know what sort of low gears you've used in the past when carrying 20-30lbs of stuff on a bike.
From lots of light touring to heavy touring experience over the years, I know what me and my knees prefer, and from what you described what trips you'd like to do, closer to 20 gear inch low is just so much more versatile and pleasant--no real downside to having lower gears--you use 'em when needed.

My bad. Swing and a miss on the joke. I wasn’t talking about the carbon fork causing an asplosion but the mixing of Trek and Specialized parts. The fork has an aluminum steer tube but I don’t have any concerns.

Thank you on the color compliment. I try.

the mix of components would only be noticed by folks like me who know that era of Spesh cross bikes that had that fork, in fact the black fork looks really nice on that frame. Very classy.

Did you have concerns about how the bikes geometry would be with the fork change? I never pay attention enough to recall trail and whatnot terms, but was this fork fairly close to the original in those tech terms? It must be as I know you wouldn't put on a fork on a bike for your daughter that brought in wonky handling.