Day 73-Washington DC to Rehoboth Beach, DE

We woke up at TJ’s at 4:40am to pack our stuff, eat breakfast, say bye to TJ and then we drove to the metro and left our bags in Evan’s car and caught the metro back to the hotel where they were holding our bikes for us. It took a lot longer than expected but we got to the capitol with our bikes at 7 and set off to ride the 100+ miles to the coast. We didn’t know the exact miles because we weren’t sure of the exact route or how far we would have to be in the car for to get across the Bay Bridge which is un-bikeable. The first 20ish miles getting out of the city was pretty rough, we were going to try the interstate because it looked like it had a good shoulder from google maps but we realized it was an awful shoulder and then there was no more shoulder so we had to switch to the backup route which had a lot of lights and rolling hills. After we got further from the city, up until mile 30 was beautiful through some woods on a small road until we met our parents at the mall who were being our crew for the day. We had been carrying all our extra road snacks and Chacos with us that we wore on the metro so we finally were able to drop those off with them. After that we had maybe 15 more miles of little hills before we got as close as we could to the Bay and put our bikes on the car to get across. The Bay Bridge was awesome, crazy long and I’m sure we would have been blown right off the bridge if we tried to bike across. Once on the other side it became the easiest century I have ever done. The rest of the ride was all flat and for a while we had a little tail wind just pushing us along towards the coast. I also got to add two states to the list of states I biked through, we did Maryland and Delaware today but only caught the sign going into Delaware. We stopped along the way to get a fresh peach from a farm along the road and continued on. Our parents stopped for a little too long to pick up some food for us for lunch and we were pretty hungry about 35-40 miles out and they didn’t catch us until 12 miles from the beach so we didn’t want to waste time eating. We probably should have just ate when they caught us but we powered through the last bit with a little head wind coming off the ocean and we were completely drained since we ate last at 5am. Finally we turned onto the road leading to the beach and I could finally see the ocean at the end of the road. I had the biggest grin and felt so accomplished looking at the ocean, I biked from ocean to ocean. We just rolled down the street at an easy pace taking it in, riding side by side. We unclipped and walked our bikes down the beach and dipped the tires into the water and jumped in, the journey for Evan and I had finally ended, there was no more ground to ride on, just ocean. What a wild thing to do, bike from coast to coast of the United States in a summer. I was so glad that Evan was with me, I definitely would not have done either the preJOH or this postJOH ride without him, he is an awesome guy and great person to be on a bike with. The total ride today was 108 miles and completely worth it. We hung out at Rehoboth and got some drinks before we drove back to Annapolis to eat dinner ate a super fancy place right on the docks with an amazing view of the water. It was late by the time we got back and Evan ended up just staying with us because he had to drop my bags off. It was the last ride I will have with Evan for a long time but we both plan to continue riding so maybe sometime we will be able to ride together again. Glad I got to hang out with him for a while longer but it sucked finally saying good bye to the last teammate. Now it is time to close the book on this summer, every memory engrained in my mind and as much as possible written down in this blog journal. I will always remember the people I met this summer and the memories we made and the impact we had, this was an incredible summer and I am lucky to have had this opportunity and I will always treasure this summer.