Day 69 - From Sea (or Sound) to Shining Sea!

Day 69 - Fri, Aug 1, Nashua, NH to York Harbor, ME

73.6 mi (63.7 to ocean)
4.5759 st (4.18.35 to ocean)
14.8 avg (14.7 avg to ocean)
TTD-3482.33 (3472.38 to ocean)
“From Sea (or Sound) to Shining Sea”

God did it! He carried us to the goal.

We were up at 6:30, had breakfast, packed and left at 8:25, after commuter traffic. It was partly cloudy with 100% humidity, and some thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon (but it never did rain on us).

I had a tiny bit of apprehension as we rode through town. We’re so close, yet…where will we find accessible water?…what will it feel like?…

The ride was quite nice with gently rolling hills, until we took 111 out of Exeter. The hills got a little steeper and the road more winding, but it was still good riding.

I saw two things by the side of the road that I’ve never seen before; a necktie and a dead, splayed-out-on-his-back frog (sorry, but it made me laugh out loud).

Some random thoughts that went through my mind today while riding:

1-If we had a dollar for every Dunkin' Donuts I've seen, it would pay for the last several nights of lodging.

2-As I've waved at people all along the way, it's been interesting to see the responses. Most older people wave back enthusiastically, about half the little kids do, and only about 1/4 of the young people wave back. Also, women tend to wave more readily than men, plus they smile.

3-We've noticed that there are a lot less motorhomes east of Ohio.

Riding through Exeter, I saw several buildings that had signs on them stating their name and the year they were build. One was “Williams House – 1709”. That’s 299 years old!

When we got to Portsmouth, we intended to cross the bridge into Kittery on Rte 1 bypass, but the sign said bicycles aren’t allowed. So we took another look at the map, went back to State Street and crossed the draw bridge on Rte 1.

That worked out okay because we passed right by Warren’s Lobster House, where we planned to eat later. We stopped to get directions to the nearest beach. We were directed out hwy 103, but the beach was a beach on the bay and we wanted the ocean.

Highway 103 was twisty and hilly and I was getting tired. We had to go all the way to York Harbor before we found a beach - about 12 miles. Okay, now how to get to the water... We had to carefully take the bike and BOB down over the rocks. We put the tire into the water at 1:39 pm eastern time. As we stood there, trying to comprehend that we were actually at the goal, a group of people gathered around and started asking questions. We had to interrupt it all because the bike was starting to sink in the sand. We got the bike and BOB back up on the sidewalk, then took off our wet shoes and socks and went back into the water. We stood there in the water and spent some time in prayer, thanking God for His watch care and abundant provision in this whole trip.

We asked another couple to take a some pictures, then talked with them for a few minutes. He said he’s ridden cross country four times. Okay, so our once is isn't spectacular. But it sure feels good to us! We tried to call home to let our people know we had made it but we didn’t have cell service. So we celebrated by ourselves with a couple of granola bars and a few minutes of just watching the water.

Twice more, people stopped to ask us questions. The kids were fun; they had one question after another. The most common one was “Where do you sleep?”.

We finally wrung out our socks, put on our soggy shoes and clipped in. As we rode away, a family that was heading to the beach had a little girl, about 9 years old, who yelled out, “Wow, now that’s some kind of bike!”

We rode back out through York Harbor village to hwy 1 (We weren't about to take 103 back). As we turned onto it, a gal on the back of a motorcycle that was sitting at the light yelled, “Yeah!” and very loudly applauded us.

This highway was flatter and more direct. It was ten miles back to the motel where we had reservations. When we pulled in, we knew it wasn't going to a Best Western! We asked to look at a room before we checked in. This motel was $79 and the next cheapest was $131 (Gerry's research yesterday). It was old, but had new carpet and was clean.

We had gotten a call earlier while we were riding, so when we got to the motel, we checked the message that was left. It was Trevor from the Bozeman Chronicle and he wanted to do a story for tomorrow. He talked with Gerry for a while, then with me. He said he's been reading the blog and saw that we were very close to the end. Afterward, we emailed a couple pictures to him for the article.

After showers and a couple phone calls, we walked the almost two miles to Warren’s Lobster House. No, we didn't have lobster - neither of us are wild about it. But we did have seafood and we enjoyed the salad bar.

One of the questions Trevor asked was “How does it feel?” If we had gotten here a couple days ago when I was so physically and emotionally tired, I would’ve just sat down in the water and cried. But today, it was a bit surreal with a sense of relief. It would have been nice to have someone we knew there to meet us and share the accomplishment with us, but it couldn't be worked out. So in a way, I guess it also felt a little lonely.

We had fulfilled our commitment to those who were pledging support and that was very important to me. And we had fulfilled our dream. Isn't God good?!!

Shaking the sand from our shoes,

Gerry and Pat

"The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through it."

~Douglas Bradbury