The end of my Cross Country trip in 2006 felt a little anti-climactic. After over 3700 miles, when I finally rolled over that last rise and saw the Atlantic ocean before me, I wasn’t overcome with a sense of joy or relief or even a sense of accomplishment. At some point earlier in that trip, I realized I was going to finish and so the actual act of finishing came as no surprise. Basically I pedaled each day, and then one day I stopped.
To be fair, the last day on the bike, was spent fighting the rain, and then rushing to get to the bike shop so that Chris and I could make arrangements for shipping our bikes home. In truth we only spent about 10 minutes looking at the Atlantic and taking pictures. We really didn’t allow ourselves to reflect on the adventure. We rushed.
I had long suspected, maybe even before I left on this trip, that the ending would feel the same. Even more so since this beginning and ending of this adventure were arbitrary. Before, I had a geographic barrier to mark the finish line, an ocean. This time it was a line in the sand. Aside from the fence that prevented me from traveling further south, the coastline continued. The same could be said for the beginning of this trip. The Pacific coast starts long before point where I joined it and it ends long after the spot where I stopped riding. I have man-made barriers to go by but to the ocean they are meaningless.
With this in mind I fully expected the end of this adventure to feel just as empty. To compensate for that, I planned and spending as much time as I wanted at the finish. I was going to ride up to the end, get off my bike and just sit in the sand staring at the ocean for as long as I liked. That was the plan. When I arrived however, the sight of the border guard, the sign that warned of the undertow and the raw sewage, the general dirtiness of this beach, and the construction going on to re-align the road, all led me to want to leave almost as soon as I arrived. Much like last time, I rushed. The one bright spot this time was that Monique was waiting there for me when rode up the last hill and saw the border.
These trips are never about the destination. At least they shouldn’t be, they are about the journey. The places and people along the way. After awhile though, I’m ready to return to the places and people with whom I’m more familiar. Family, friends, my own bed, yes even work. These thing become my vacation from my vacation. All my trips serve to remind me just how good I have it.
Don’t worry I won’t stop planning and executing these adventures and sharing them with you all, but I will also, always, come home.
Thanks for sticking with me. Below are some final statistics and observations I thought you might find interesting.
Maury
Weight Lost: 9 lbs
Total Number of Dollars spent: 1100(rounding up)
Total Riding Time: 132 hours and 45 minutes
Total Miles: 1587
Total Number days: 27
Average Miles per day: 58.7
Average Dollars per day: 40.74
Average Riding Hours per day: 4.92
Average term papers completed: 1 (eight pages with bibliography)
Average # of motorcycles stolen and then recovered: 1
Average # of hours to recover motorcycle: 10 hours
Average # of Credit/Debit cards lost: 1
Average # Police Officers it takes to tell me I can’t ride on the Freeway: 2
Average # of illegal immigrants arrested on the last day: 4
Joy of sleeping in a real bed, Priceless
This time I talked to more tourers, interestingly most just wanted to talk about themselves and the things that happened to them while riding. Can you imagine how boring it is to listen to somebody talk about the daily minutia of their long distance bike tour. Worse yet, they would show you pictures, or videos.
Ever notice how Maury and his bike are never in the pictures at the same time? Curious, could they be the same person?
Combined with the X-Country trip in 2006:
Item seen most often lying on the side of the road, ending up there because it was obviously not properly secured to a passing vehicle: Bungee Cords (I’m not kidding!)
Lastly here is my final video:
done
