I did it. I made it to the Atlantic Ocean

There’s so much that I still want to say. So many things that happened that I feel like I didn’t quite get to. That I couldn’t find the time to sit down and write. Or that I couldn’t figure out how to get down on paper the way I wanted to.

I want to tell you all about the closure of the Cave-in-Rock ferry—how the states of Illinois and Kentucky couldn’t agree on how to pay for it—and how locals (and me) were having to take a 20-mile detour to cross the Ohio River. I want to tell you about how I kept getting chased by dogs in Kentucky, and how I got so scared and paranoid after a close call with a pit bull that I ended up renting a car to skip a couple hundred miles of East Appalachia. I want to tell you about the couple who bought my dinner at a fabulous old bar in the historic Beaumont Inn. I want to tell you about the Mennonite family I met outside a small market in Virginia, who invited me to their house for dinner and had me stay the night. Or my steepest climb of the trip, up the Blue Ridge, where I fell off my bike. I want to tell you about my last night camping, and how I ate an entire summer sausage out of someone’s overpriced goodie basket in the community kitchen, thinking it was a freebie. Or how I had to give an acceptance speech for a journalism award in my helmet on the side of the road. Or how my family showed up to celebrate my 30th birthday at a fancy restaurant, and I had to borrow my sister’s clothes to look halfway presentable. Or how my dad joined me on an e-bike for the last few days, and I got to share the end of my adventure with the people I love most.

There’s so much I still want to write and say. I’m realizing it will take time to flush it out—and that will likely happen in spurts.

But, for now, I’ll tell you that I finished my ride at the Neptune statue in Virginia Beach.

The day wasn’t perfect: It was brutally hot, the route I drew up took me through a couple areas that didn’t feel all that safe. About 5 miles from the finish line, someone leaned out of their car window and threw firecrackers at my front tire.

But when I saw the ocean, I cried.

When you’re doing something that takes this long and is this physically exhausting, you don’t let yourself think too much about the finish line. Or, at least, I didn’t. I took things one day at a time. Sometimes one hour—or one mile—at a time. That’s typically all I had the mental bandwidth for.

So the finish line took me a bit by surprise. It’s hard to describe what it felt like—my whole family and boyfriend there with a sign, playing music, and cheering me on. I pushed my bike through the sand in between crowds and crowds of people and dipped my front tire in the ocean, then dove into the waves.

Just like that, it was over.

After two years gearing my life up for this trip, all of a sudden, it just ended.

It’s felt like whiplash ever since. I flew back home and had a few days to pack up our stuff (and two dogs!) to move to New York for a year.

I can’t help but feel that this journey feels unfinished. I still have interviews to share, thoughts to unpack, ideas to wrestle through. And a few difficult moments to relive.

This journey was my own. I cut some chunks for weather, knee pain, and for dogs—and in the middle to start my journalism fellowship on time. And I’ll probably always wrestle with the idea that I didn’t truly finish what I started because of that.

But I’m freaking proud. Over 70 days, I biked 3,176 miles through 9 states.

Moving forward, everything feels new, though I’m still wrestling through in what way. I feel kinder, more sympathetic. Stronger. Less afraid. I have better perspective.

I like what another cyclist I met along the way messaged me when she finished her ride not long after me: “I’m pretty sure it is going to impact my life in more ways that I can’t even see yet.”

Everything is different. I’m different.

In some ways, it feels that my adventure has only just begun.

Thank you so much for following along on what has—truly—been the adventure of my lifetime. It’s been an honor to get to share this trip with such an incredible community. Just so you know, I plan to continue writing in the coming weeks and months, as I have many more interviews to share, and more of my trip I want to write about. However, since my trip itself has ended, I will be turning off the paid subscription function, though I hope you will stick around as a free subscriber. In the coming weeks, you can expect to see more interviews from the road, more moments unpacked, and more thoughtful reflections as I have time to delve into the significance this trip and the people I’ve met have had on my life. Thanks for sticking around.