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We've done it! We reached the Pacific! Chris crossed America!

Saturday stats

Start: Wandering Spirit RV Park, Grand Ronde, Ore.

End: Nancy's house, Neskowin, Ore. Elevation: 26

The Daily Progress: 30.6

Uphill / downhill: 1640 / 2001 feet

Ice cream flavors: mint chocolate chip and coffee fudge almond for me, marionberry pie for Dani

Beer / wine flavors: A nitro stout from ???, a Pinot Gris from ???

Lodging expenses: $30? Not sure yet, actually. 

Food expenses: $48 for lunch at the cafe here in Neskowin, $15 for ice cream, $38? for drinks from the general store.

Saturday success story

Well, we did it! We've made it to the Pacific Ocean. And I've gone all the way from Washington, D.C., to the Oregon coast by bicycle, self-supported. 

I often have a hard time identifying, and sometimes even feeling, my own emotions, and this is one of those moments. There are too many competing thoughts and feelings right now, but I'll do my best to put some of them into words. Of course, more will come later, especially in the long train ride home. But for now:

I think the first feeling I can identify is disbelief. No, it's not that I didn't think I could do this. (I was very confident that I could, possibly even more confident than I should've been.) I just have a difficult time believing that enough time has passed for me to have pedalled my slow self all those 4,200 miles. Has is really been almost four months?

The second feeling: Satisfaction. I've been dreaming of doing a tour like this for years. Every year I'd go on a shorter tour for a week or two, some of them with Dani but more of them on my own. I'd winnowed my packing list down over the years and gotten everything to fit on my back rack. I'd been well prepared. And, of course, I was still in for some surprises and challenges on this tour — a tornado warning, constant threats of thunderstorms, capital tunnel syndrome, covid, intense heat — but I (or we) figured out how to overcome them all. I knew we had a very good chance of making it. And we did.

Then, of course, there's a lot of gratitude. I am grateful to so many people for so many reasons that I don't want to even start down the path of writing it out right now — that will probably have to be an entire blog entry — so I will have to revisit this. Let's just say: If you are reading this, I am probably feeling very grateful to you — yes, you — for your support, large or small, so THANK YOU! And I will explain in detail soon. 

I'm also feeling a little confused about whether I should be celebrating yet. The tour is not over. I still want to get to the end of the TransAm in Astoria, and even after that, we have another two days of riding to Portland. (So don't worry — if you've been enjoying this blog, I plan to keep it going until I'm well along my train ride back to the East Coast, which would be Aug. 25 or 26.) I've never been on a tour with so many objectives. But as I write this, I think I'm realizing the absurdity of my confusion. The biggest objective was to reach the Pacific. Mission: accomplished! Woohoo! I guess I can't relax just yet because I know we still need to ride a couple hundred more miles. So it's a little confusing! We did it! But we still have a good chunk of riding to do!

And finally, there's uncertainty. I've been dreaming of this tour for years and now it is winding down. When it's really over, I'll have to ask myself what I'm looking forward to next. No, it's definitely not another bike tour. It's more about finding more long-term satisfaction in "regular life," in not relying on an escape like this, at least not exclusively, to find excitement and satisfaction. I have some ideas (as I mentioned yesterday, I have been thinking about what I want to prioritize in my life when I get back home), but I will put more thought into that on my train ride. For now, I'm just acknowledging this uncertainty: What comes next? How will I make my life different now that I've gotten this tour out of my system? It's a good challenge, one that I feel ready to face.

But in this moment, I want to return to the feeling of satisfaction and end today's thoughts there. Dani and I are in our tent on a small yard overlooking the beach. We can hear the ocean waves crashing on the shore just a couple hundred feet away. We are about to sleep on the western edge of the continent. And I got here on my own power, after leaving from the opposite side, crossing not just mountains but multiple mountain ranges, fighting wind and rain, traversing the Great Plains and outrunning countless dogs. I don't know if I would ever do another tour like this again, but I know I'll look back on this adventure, with much happiness and satisfaction, for the rest of my life.

Dani's daily digest

Let's not bury the lede: today we reached the Pacific Ocean! 

Our ride to the ocean was short (31 miles) but did require two substantial climbs. The last one climb took us into a coastal rainforest, which was notably damp.  

Upon arriving at the coast, we took the requisite photos and then showers. As he was taking his shower, Chris realized he needed to submerge himself in the ocean. He did, and then he took another shower. 

We are camping in the yard of a beautiful beach home in Neskowin. Our tent overlooks the beach, and the yard is ringed with dahlias in a panoply of forms and colors. The house has enormous windows and is charmingly cluttered and full of character.

We got lunch at the town cafe and started on a walk on the beach, but both of us were feeling like we just wanted to sit and absorb where we were rather than seek out more adventure, so we got ice cream and then spent most of the afternoon and evening just sitting on the deck and watching for whales. (We did not see any.)