I made it!

So we done did it. All 30 of us made it across the country on a bicycle. In then final three days of the trip I had one of my least favorite days of the entire trip from Brawely to Julian, and then the next day was one of my favorites. Brawely lies about 400 ft below sea level, but to get to the ocean we had one last mountain to climb. On the day out of Brawely we did 4,000 ft of climbing over 30 miles, and as the physic major on the trip pointed out the profile for the day looked like an exponential growth graph. That is not a happy graph to bike, because it kept getting steeper as the day went on. By the end of that day I was so excited that the trip was almost over because we not only had to climb lots but it was into a head wind in the desert. It is hard to get more demoralizing conditions to bike in. I was 2 hours away from the church for hours. First we had 30 miles to go if we could continue to go 15 mph, and what seemed like an eternity later there was 8 miles left at 4 mph. Me and just about everything were in a big fight. I did manage somehow to make it up that beast, and rewarded myself with a homemade ice cream cookie sandwich.

Shortly before we entered Julian we left the desert behind us, and the next day we climbed 1,000 ft through apple orchards, and then spent the rest of the day descending. It was amazing. There were some hills that we had to climb, but when you were ready for them to end they did. I could have kept riding for months in that sort of terrain, but the next day we ran into the ocean, literally. I dipped my front tire in the Pacific, took some pictures, and then carefully set my bike down out of reach of the salt water so I could run full speed into the water. In San Diego the Pacific is pretty warm, and the beach is beautiful. We had many cheering friends and family as well as normal beach goers who stopped to ask us what all the commotion was about. It was so great to tell people "we just biked across the country for affordable housing."

I spent two extra days hanging out in San Diego, but unfortunately got a stomach bug. It was not my favorite thing to have, but at the same time I would have rather missed hanging out in San Diego then not having been able to ride the final days of the trip. I flew back to Maine on Saturday night, and luckily by that time I was feeling better. My bike is still making its way across the country. I had to take it apart and put it in a box so that it could be shipped. I realized that I had really made it across the country when I looked at my bike sitting there all disassembled. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it makes it here in one piece.

I would like to thank everyone who helped me complete this trip. Thank you to everyone who that donated money, or gave me encouragement. My fund raising total was over $5,500, and after the trip was paid for my route will donate over $55,500 to affordable housing. Donation can still be made at bikeandbuild.org. We will be giving grants of various amounts to chapters of Habitat for Humanity in Orange County NC, Memphis, San Diego, and Winston-Salem NC, as well as another affordable housing program called Mountain Housing in Asheville NC. Routes that started in the North East will give grants to this section of the country. I would also like to thank Sherwood Olin, and the Lincoln County News for running my weekly updates.

Now it is time to be part of the real world of life after college. I think it is going to contain less biking and building, and more working. It was a fun summer. I learned a lot, had some fun, and have a pretty sweet shorts tan to show for it.