Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Day 158, 10/13/10 - Cornish to Portland, ME





Just the Basics: After 4,390 miles - 39 of them today - we have come to the end of our bike ride across this amazing country. We'll be back with a wrap up later, but for now, Katherine Lee Bates and Samuel Ward said it more eloquently than we ever could (we do have a comment at the end):

America the Beautiful
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

We have been privileged to see the beauty and the effort - and the work still to be done - across a vast cross-sectional slice of this country in a unique and deeply personal way - and hope to see our country fulfill it's great promise. We'll try to do our part. Thanks for sharing this adventure with us!

Today's Pictures: (1) Pouring water from the Atlantic on our front wheels - as we poured water from the Pacific on the rear wheels on May 9th; and (2) We are very happy!

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations--what an amazing feat and an experience of a lifetime! I hope you've been having fun and relaxing with H&H!

    Diane

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations - we are so proud of the two of you and your accomplishment of completing this incredible journey. Even though we only spent one evening with the two of you we knew that you would make it to the coast. We made it to Anacortes, Wa and plan on biking from Wisconsin to Bar Harbor, Maine next summer. Way to go!
    http://www.pedalingthemidwest.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. << we sent these via email and then later realized that they had not made it to you. A little sleuthing and we found your blog! >>

    Ditto what Kate said. We are very excited for you. Wasn't it a blast to arrive at the ocean?!! Super congratulations!

    Scott

    Scott Bischke | MountainWorks | 406-582-4442


    On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Katie Gibson wrote:
    Hi Becky and Riley,

    Congratulations! I'm glad the shipping worked out well. Our bikes showed up on our doorstep in great shape a week later.

    I was going to ask you if you guys kept a blog or a log of your trip. I'd be interested in seeing your route and which places you liked best. Plus if you have any recommendations for more bicycle tours, we're always looking for ideas. We were talking about going somewhere in April/May to get out of mud season and talked about cycling the CA coast, cycling the Carolina coast, among other brainstormed ideas. After all that, we finally decided to go to Corsica to go hiking so that'll be our next trip in April/May for 3 weeks. But we're still very interested in more cycle tours in the States or in Europe.

    Keep in touch,
    Cheers, Katie (and Scott)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have to ask whether the bakery you were heading for in Portland, ME was the Standard Baking Company. We had a full breakfast at Becky's in the Old Port and then discovered the Standard bakery down the street and picked up lots more treats.

    Cheers,
    Katie

    ReplyDelete