Upon waking up I realized that I had a broken spoke and a severely bent rim. I planned on fixing it myself, but my stepdad insisted that I take it to a bike shop. We dropped it off and told them we would pick it up in about an hour after breakfast. When we got back to the bike shop the mechanic was still working on the rim. I wished I had just fixed it myself, because I wanted to finish my last 55 miles of the trip so I could spend the rest of the day celebrating. He finally got done and we headed for the point I left off the night before. Halfway there I received a phone call from the bike shop saying they forgot to put my skewer in the wheel. Instead of turning around and taking more time out of the day we found a bike shop in the area and purchased a rear skewer from them. My stepdad dropped me off at the same location he had picked me up the night before and told me he would see me at the beach later in the day. The first few miles were nearly all uphill, but finally I reached a downhill run. I coasted through town after town on the backside of the mountain. In one small town I saw a large amount of police cars in front of a small store and asked someone in the surrounding crowd what was going on. He said they had finally caught a local fugitive. I pedaled on past the ruckus. It was a beautiful ride as I got closer and closer to San Diego. I hit some uphill and flat spots, but it was mainly all downhill. As I got closer to San Diego I got more and more anxious to finish. I arrived in the San Diego area around 6pm and pedaled on in search of the beach where my family was waiting. The Adventure Cycling maps were not detailed enough and I got a little mixed up on where to go the last few miles. I finally got it sorted out and saw my family waiting on the bridge before the beach for me. They took some pictures and drove beside me as I rode the last half mile to the beach. At about 6:30pm I dipped my front tire in the Pacific Ocean. It was bitter sweet as I was very tired, but knew it was the end of a great journey. We took more pictures and celebrated in San Diego the remainder of the evening and the next few days. Over the next few days I debated in my head the next big things I want to do in my life. I have some ideas so check back later for more adventures!!!

1:26 am in Blog by Jon Picklesimer No Comments »