The Journey Comes to an End

July 10, 2009

If you can imagine how late we ordinarily get started in the morning, imagine seventeen people all getting ready to leave at the same time—whew! Since today’s ride is our first round-trip day, a few core things are different. First, everybody is riding their bikes. There is no support vehicle driver, and thus no room for injuries, emergencies, or lunch (aside from what we carry or buy). Second, for the first time, we are all riding pannier-less, because our starting point and destination are one and the same in San Diego. Third, we are all going to the Mexican border—together. That’s right, as Pod Everyone.

So to start off the day, we all spontaneously decided to go to Denny’s for breakfast (we didn’t have much leftover). Thanks to Rachel’s iPhone, we even found one within two miles of the church. Bugsy did an impromptu photo shoot along the way a neat touch. As one can imagine, it is rather difficult to stay together with a group of seventeen. Jess, Taryn, and I all managed to miss the first light, and then proceeded to not pay attention to which way everyone else was going. Needless to say, none of us had paid too much attention to the oral directions given, so we got a little lost. And then Taryn fell into the road while riding, which could have been much worse (she was having issues with her shoes un-clipping from her pedals). We called to find out where we went wrong, and soon found ourselves in good company with many other green-shirted people in the restaurant. Jess, ever the creative one, had each person at our table say our favorite moments of the trip. I then had us go around and retell our scariest moments/closest misses. I then proceeded to show everyone my latest and greatest pictures, and before we knew it, our food was ready. I have this preconceived notion that Denny’s is not a good chain, but to be fair, I’m not sure I had ever had breakfast there before. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s my favorite chain, but for breakfast, it’s passable—certainly much better than fast food. The team picked up the tab, which was nice. All that it really means is that we paid for it a long time ago in our trip fee. The bill was kept down by the fact that Carly didn’t tell us we were using communal funds until after we had finished eating (I heard a few, “man, I would have gotten a milkshake…” mumblings). I actually split a meal with Patrick because I didn’t have enough cash on hand to finance my own! Oh well.

Craziness ensued on the lawn, including a human pyramid of all the girls. The time to kill was created by Rachel and Rachel alone. She had wait for the bike shop to open in order to get a rental bike because Bugsy needed to ride hers, and her own was out of commission. She wasn’t all too flustered about it—it was a light road bike in great condition (it was even shiny!), so little complaining was heard from her mouth aside from having to pay for the rental and returning it late.

The girls, from left to right, top to bottom: Rachel, Angie, Taryn, Anna, Jennie, Bugsy, Jess, Sarah, Eva, Carly

The guys (except for Omid): Ben, Patrick, Adam, Graham, Brad, Cody, and (being held) Sars

Eventually (I think it was around 11:00 or so), we were all finally ready to roll. It was the first time we had ridden in a mass pod, and the first time that everyone rode since the first two days, when Shawn (the President of Global Agents for Change, who this year is doing the GAFC inaugural tour of Europe) was still with us and drove the van for a few days.

Some things I noticed bring closure to the tour—a sense of these random events having meaning and relate to a larger whole, which started before the tour and continues even after the tour ends officially. First, I found myself riding next to Bugsy at one point near the beginning of the ride, post-Denny’s. She was telling me how nice it was to ride with me for the first time. But I distinctly remember riding with her on the Pledge Ride in Vancouver the first day, May 31. I reminded her and she then remembered, and thought it was fitting that we were riding together again (as did I). As it turns out, I actually rode with her part of the way back from the border as well, which was nice, since I had not paid attention on the way to the border. Second, we took a ferry to Coronado rather than ride through around the bay. It was fairly cheap, and totally worth it. We learned of it through the guy who rented Rachel her bike, which was a lucky find. We had only ever taken one other ferry, and it was towards the beginning of the trip, from Seattle to Bremerton, WA. This one was much less spacious, partially because we were among the last to board the ferry. Lastly, the first day of biking and the last were quite similar in terms of excessive bike paths, a massive pod (which the first day also included “extras”), and the incredible heat and sun. To be sure, there were hot days along the way, but the first and last days stand out as two of the hottest of all.

The trip to the border was not bad at all. As noted above, bike paths took us most of the way, though eventually we had to take to the streets. Some of us, in the safety of the bike path, embarked in an ephemeral game of Indian Runs, in which we all lined up in a row while riding and the last person in line sprinted to the front, slowed down, and lead the pack until the next person passed.

It was not immediately clear, when we were getting close, which way we were supposed to go if we only wanted to go to the border on a bike, and not cross. We eventually figured out that we had to go to the pedestrian entrance, where we lingered for some time. In many ways, it was anti-climactic. I’m sure there are as many opinions about it as there are people on the trip, but I heard several people say, “This is it?” Whether they were referring to the end of our journey or to the border itself, I don’t know. At any rate, the border crossing at which we found ourselves was rather drab, with quite a steady flow of pedestrians headed to Mexico. It didn’t appear to be very hard to cross, although I’m sure going the other way is a different story. Some people celebrated outwardly, others sort of stood and soaked in the scene. I fell into the latter category, paying attention to other people’s reactions, as well as to the people passing by who had to walk around seventeen green-shirted people. You’d think that people would have stopped to ask what on earth we were doing, but not one person even questioned our awkward presence at the gate, aside from border patrol. After maybe 20-30 minutes, people started to get antsy/hungry and wanted to head back. So we split off our separate ways, meeting back up at the church for one more night’s scheduled accommodation.

How encouraging: the distance we biked fits between Rachel's legs

Jump! Notice the fence behind us, aka "The Border"

While some decided they did not want to pay for the ferry ride, Ben, Patrick and I decided we would take it. Cody was originally in our pod, but he raced ahead, despite the slight headwind. Lucky for him, he caught the 5:30 ferry, but we were forced to take the 6:30 one, having watched it depart before our eyes, with a green-shirted Cody waving from the top. But it worked out for the best: we ate dinner at a Greek restaurant nearby, and before too long, we were joined by Bugsy, Angie, and Taryn. During the course of dinner, Bugsy shared her desire to go to Sea World again. She had been two years ago at most recent, and many times before, but can never get enough of it. She promised she would go with me if I wanted to go, and before I knew it, I had promised to go with her. We would invite the whole team, we decided, but even if nobody else wanted to come, we would still go. On the brief ride (about 100 meters) to the ferry, I noticed that the ride was awfully bumpy. Sure enough, the back tire was completely flat. I decided that an eight-minute ferry ride was enough to fix it. After all, I had already fixed two of my own, and watched countless others fixed. Most of the time was consumed by trying to diagnose the problem: I couldn’t find a puncture anywhere in the tube. Eventually I decided I would figure it out later and just pump it up as much as possible. With a little help in getting the tire back on, I was able to roll right as we were docking in San Diego. From there, I had a great ride with Bugsy along the bay, chatting mainly about friends and family. She decided that she must meet some of my friends—Heather and Laura in particular, whose lives intrigued her the most. We had never really gotten the chance to know one another for various reasons, so the ride back made me look forward to Sea World all the more.

A church kitchen in San Diego proved to be the last place ever we were all in the same place. We all know that it never happens that everyone comes to a reunion. It may seem an unlikely place, but if you can imagine 17+ bike strobe lights…enough said. The next morning, Rachel set out bright and early, so they told me. She tried to say goodbye to everyone, but she didn’t find me sleeping by myself in the gym on the hard tile floor.

To tie up this blog with a bow, allow me to share one anecdote. I was recently at a gathering in New York for Kristin Paulson, who gave an overview of her recent mission trip to Nairobi, Kenya. She gave quite a nice presentation, and at the end, she greeted everyone. As usual, I was the last to greet her, and before she let me get a single word in, she wanted to know all about my first bike tour. Then Emmanuel, the pastor’s son, perhaps thinking about the consequences of that kind of question, said, “you have one minute.” It actually only took me seventeen seconds to tell her everything she needed to know. So for those of you who may have faithfully read every entry, even every word, I’m sorry. I could have summed it all up like I did for Kristin:

17 people
41 days, including 6 days off
Vancouver, Canada to the Mexican border, southern California
2,000 miles total
50 +/- miles per day
accommodation in churches, community centers, and campgrounds
cause: micro-credit
required fundraising: $3,000 (CDN) per rider
2 personal flat tires (technically 3, if you include the one on the way back from the border)
84,230,948,023 collective calories in-taken

For those of you who have learned that in life it is about the journey and not about the destination, I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog in spite of the above summary. Please write or send me your comments directly—I’d love to hear from you. Until next time…

Ta da!! Cue the credits music...