View photos from our trip!

We finally have most of the photos from our bike trip up on the interweb: http://picasaweb.google.com/jason.haserodt/BikeTripAcrossAmerica200702
Enjoy!

Done! (Officially!)

We're now officially finished!!! Eric and I biked to the ocean yesterday and dipped our bikes in the Atlantic, fulling completing our trans-continental bike trip. To me though, it doesn't really feel like we're finished - my legs are still nominally sore, I'm still wearing the same set of clothes I have for weeks, and I'm still "on the road" away from home. It feels more like I'm just taking a short break, like in St. Paul or in Cleveland, and that in a short time I'll be back on the road biking. It's a little weird, but kind of neat, how biking all day has become "what I do," and seems like a normal way of life. I think going back to work/"real life" is going to be a little difficult, but I figure I'll get used to sitting in front of a computer all day, just like I got used to sitting on my bike all day - it only hurts really bad for two weeks and then it becomes mostly tollerable...

"In the sunset of dissolutionment, everything is illuminated in the ora of nostalgia," even The Bike Trip. I'd be lying is I said that their weren't some rought times and times when I wished I could just hop on a train and go home. However, all-in-all, it was a really wonderful experience and I'm very glad I did it. We've seen parts of the country, met people, and had experiences that you couldn't have any other way besides on a bike. We owe a big thanks to all the kind people who openned their homes to us, gave us a place to stay, food to eat, chatted with us, or helped us along in other ways. The scenery was spectacular, but it was really all of these people we met who made the trip truly special.

In case you were wondering, we did finish in under 8 weeks, ahead of schedule, biked nearly 4200 miles (7000 Km), and I lost nearly 20 pounds!

Done!

In case you can't tell, this is a photo of the Rhode Island sign at the side of the road and I am standing next to the sign. It was dark.

Yesterday around 1:30 pm, Eric and I were sitting in the Bella Italian Restaurant, a great little pizza joint run by a very friendly Turkish guy in Westfield, CT, when I joking mused that it would be fun to go all out and bike the remaining 100 miles non-stop stopping only for donuts ever 15 miles or so. This was of course just a joke and a total absurd idea and wasn't meant to be taken seriously, especially since we had already biked 40 miles and it was already in the afternoon.

While I continued to eat my half of our 16 inch Pizza, Eric called Rachael to see when she would be coming to Rhode Island to pick us up. It turned out that Rachael decided to leave that day and that we would have to drive back Wednesday evening. In order to maximize Rhode Island time, we thought, why not bike there tonight?

So we did the unthinkable and biked 137 miles out of the Berkshire Mountains and over some of the worst hills all the way through Massachussets, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all the way to Eric's parents home in Warwick, RI.

When we arrived, we were greeted with pizza, donuts and beer, and after eating a bit, I took a shower and collapsed on a bed. When I woke up this morning, I found that my legs and especially my knees were pretty upset with me, but that's okay, because I'm all done!

Almost all done, that is. We still need to bike to the ocean (less than 1 mile away) and dip our bikes in the Atlantic to officially end The Bike Trip. Hurray!