May 2, the end.

We had a lovely closing banquet last night. great conversations with joyce, liz, janine and karen c. funny speeches by nancy and carolyn. sunnye and I repeated our song with one new verse. just a general feeling of pride, contentedness and accomplishment. cathy gave a funny speech for her birthday, liz gave another one. just lots of happiness and laughs. this morning at breakfast, the atmosphere was a little more subdued. the first people started driving home. bikes were loaded for the bike shop and the remainder of us stood under the roof of the motel waiting to say our final good-byes. the realization had hit us that It truly was over and many of us would never see each other again. there were lots of hugs. some tears, and many lasting memories. I'm sure some of us will stay in touch, some of us will probably even ride together again. but there's no way that an experience such as this could be repeated. how funny that my first roommate,helen, was also my last. she just boarded her plane across from my gate. what a great way to end the trip._________unser letztes abendessen zusammen war toll. nicht traurig, sondern humorvoll mit viele gute geschichten erzaehlt. heute beim fruestueck ging es ein bisschen trauriger zu, als die ersten sich verabschiedeten. jetzt sitzte ich I'm jacksonville flughafen und warte auf meinem flug. wir haben wirklich was geleistet. wir koennen dieses erlebniss nie wiederholen.

May 1, part 2

waiting at the fire station for the police escort. we've reached the atlantic. loading up bikes the next day to get them to the bike shop for packing and shipping.

May 1, part 1

Well, it's all over now. We left the motel at 7:30 a.m. to ride the 40 miles to St. John's Fire Station, where the police were waiting to escort us the 6 miles to the beach. The sun was shining, it wasn't too warm and it was the perfect day. We all made it over the back roads into the station at 10:30 a.m. We all used the bathroom and then got ready to go. It was actually pretty exciting to be escorted through red lights. Lots of people waved and yelled encouragement. We rode in pairs and Helen was my partner. We crossed the bridge and made it to the beach, where some family members met us and took tons of pictures of us dipping our wheels in the Atlantic and dipping ourselves in the Atlantic. IT was a nice feeling to be finished, but somewhat anticlimatic because it's hard to believe it's over. I expect to be getting on my bike tomorrow morning. But I'm sure Mallory and Harnish will jerk me back to reality when they pick me up at the airport tomorrow. When I got into the motel, I decided to ride a few more miles so that I would have exactly 2800 miles on my odometer. I came back again, had a swim, showered and got everything in order for tomorrow. We have to get the bikes to the bike shop for shipping and the people to the airport for getting home. And would you believe, it poured down rain just a half an hour ago. With thunder and lightning!!! So now we're just gathering in the lobby to go to our final banquet. Thank you to everyone who followed my blog, called, texted, commented or emailed. I really appreciated everyone's support and good wishes. I hope that I can share more of my impressions with you all sometime.______________Na, es ist jetzt vorbei! Der Tag war sonnig und trocken. Wir fuhren bis zum Feuerwehrhaus am Rand der Stadt und dann fuhrte die Polizei unsere Gruppe zum Strand, wo Familie und Freunde uns troffen, machte Fotos von uns, und wir tunkten unsere Vorderraedern im Meer. Danach gab es ein Essen im Strandhaeuschen bevor wir ins Motel fuhren. Ich fuhr noch ein Paar Meilen so dass mein Kilometerzaehler genau 2800 Meilen zeigte. Danach bin ich geschwommen, habe mich geduscht und, wisst Ihr was? Es hat um 16 Uhr fuerchterlich gestuermt!! Wir haben Schwein gehabt. Danke allen, die mein Blog gefogt haben. Danke auch, fuer die Emails, Anrufe, Texte und Kommentare. Ich hoffe, dass ich gelegentlich meine Eindruecke mit Euch teilen kann.