We’re one week out from biking to the Washington Monument—one week and a few days out from bidding farewell to the van, our bikes, and each other, from re-entering our non-Spokes lives like fish returning to water.
I can’t quite imagine the end of Spokes; I don’t know whether, like a fish, I’ll flop around on the deck before finding my way over the edge, or whether I’ll slip right back into the rhythm of life in one place with quicksilver grace. I suspect it will be a bit of both—that completing Spokes and going home will be simultaneously bittersweet and a welcome relief.
This past week has not been easy. Everyone on the team is or has been dealing with physical ailments medium and small, and we have not had an official rest day since Farmington, MO—what feels like a lifetime ago. When we arrive at Victoria’s home in Pittsburgh earlier today in time for a delicious home-cooked lunch, I’m weary to the bone.
It’s interesting to watch Victoria with her parents, to match faces with the voices we’ve heard on the other end of her phone on a nearly daily basis. Familiarity is a luxury we haven’t had much of this trip, and I’m reminded that there is no place, no people, more familiar to me than home.
That afternoon, we spend an hour cleaning out the car and spreading everything out on Victoria’s driveway. Baby wipes, a bag of rice, various canned foods, sleeping bags, a hammer, shoes and plates and tent—the things that have been most familiar to me this past summer. We donate some things, keep others; the van is emptier than before.
Nearly every Spokes day involves a goodbye of some sort. These days, I can feel the team preparing for the final stretch, sitting in this space of almost-goodbye even as we continue meeting new people and traveling new places.
We’re almost there.
I’ll see you all next week for my final blog—
Anna