July 26, 2018
Day 63 Portland
Portland, ME
We. Did. It!
What an incredible end to an amazing journey.
We started out our day with a short rainy ride to breakfast at Sacopee Valley House of Pizza, which apparently also has a full diner breakfast menu. Would not have guessed that from the name. We watched the rain showers outside while we fueled up for the day. We pulled out every bit of our mojo though and by the time we finished breakfast, the sun had come out. We followed a somewhat busy road for about 5 miles before turning onto a less direct but much better road for biking to the coast. We definitely had some rolling ups and downs (even though a lady we talked to at the diner said it was flat all the way to the coast🙄). We biked along beautiful New England forests and soon started to see more marshes here and there. Must be close to the coast! We decided to end our ride at Cape Elizabeth lighthouse just south of Portland, as biking into the city was complicated and the ride along the coast was highly recommended. Definitely a good call. The ocean breeze and scenery was wonderful. At one point as we were biking along in the wide bike lane, Jon pulled up Pandora and Eye of the Tiger came on...”went the distance, now I’m not gonna stop...” 😄 We held hands as we rolled to a stop at Cape Elizabeth. Wow. We did it. We really did it. So many emotions. Elation, satisfaction and joy that we accomplished journey; a little melancholy. We uncorked the champagne and took multiple pictures at the cape and Jon dove into the ocean. Don’t know why I didn’t want to exactly, maybe the seaweed, maybe the temperature, maybe the finality of it. At the end of this journey, just like hiking the AT, we’re glad that we finished, but sad that it’s over. I can say that we’re incredibly grateful to have made it safe and sound with no injuries and no flat tires! (Although Jon reminded me that he cut his finger on the slow motion fall back in Idaho. 😄)
After we walked back to our bikes, the sprinkles started. We had 1/2 mile to go to our car and it was out and out raining by the time we’d changed clothes, loaded bikes and hit the road. Even though the forecast had looked like we’d be rained on our last 3 days of the ride, we somehow managed to miss it while riding. Prayers answered.
On our drive back up to Vermont, we made a “quick” stop in Contoocook, NH to see the house Jon lived in up to age 5. There was an older lady in the garage and Jon walked up to say hello. This turned into a full on visit and tour. They’d known Jon’s folks and remembered them from a neighborhood his parents had lived in before this one. They didn’t know that the Rudolfs had lived in this particular house some 50 years ago. Crazy! Eventually we made our way back to our friends Brad and Emily in Vermont and went out for a celebratory dinner. Great way to end an epic day. Tomorrow, we head off to Grafton, VT where my mom and sister are hanging out for a week and will celebrate Mom’s birthday. Everything just seems to have come into perfect order for the end of this trip.
Thank you all for your encouragement, prayers and assistance in this wonderful adventure. We hope you’ve enjoyed following along and hope this inspires you to take that thing you’d really like to do and make it happen.
Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 46 miles (74 km)
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