Day 28

Beyond a couple of trips to the bathroom during the night (just for #1), I slept like a rock. I got up around 7:30 and made it downstairs for a nice breakfast (two bowls of Cheerios, two bananas, and the last of my mini-bagels) with Liz. I was definitely feeling a lot better. Today would be that easy day I was hoping for yesterday.

I got my bike out of the minivan, reattached all the bags, and waved goodbye around 9:00. I was well within the bounds of the Chicago suburbs, but for the first third of the ride from Lemont to Park Ridge, it was actually hard to tell because most of it was spent riding on roads that pass through Cook County Forest Preserves. Going north on Willow Springs Rd., I crossed over the Cal Sag Channel, the I&M Canal, the Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Des Plaines River, one after another. I was hoping to have one last good hill to climb, and would have if I crossed the Des Plaines River farther west in Lemont, but everything was pretty flat where I was.

Once over the waterways, I got on IL 171/1st Ave/Cumberland going north. My route through North Riverside took me two blocks away from Ivan (a coworker) and Danielle's house, so I stopped by, but unfortunately (for them!) they weren't home. It was really amazing to me how quickly I had travelled into familiar surroundings. At one time in my life, the 33 miles across the suburbs from Lemont would have been an expedition all in itself, but before I knew it I had crossed I-90 and was in Park Ridge. I actually found myself riding on some of the very same streets I used to ride on my way home from high school ten years ago. Although the ride was pretty easy, and traffic was tolerable, I was amazed at the absolutely terrible condition of the road surfaces. I guess it really wasn't much worse than my normal riding around the suburbs, but I'd just gotten used to riding on much nicer roads throughout my trip.

So I survived that, and then, right around noon, I pedalled up to my parents' house. My dad was out in the driveway waxing the car, and it was great to see him. After a while my mom came out, and I got a very nice big hug from her. Even though I still had one final leg of riding to do, I definitely felt like I had made it "home". My mom was cool enough to cook up a batch of four tacos for me for lunch, complete with fresh tomatoes from the garden, and man, did they taste great. I'd been waiting to eat those for a month. Then I flopped down in the family room, turned on the Cubs game, and drifted in and out of sleep for a couple hours. It was a perfect lazy late summer Sunday afternoon.

Eventually though, I had to get myself home; I had to be at work the next morning! So I left around 5:00 to ride the familiar route back to Hoffman Estates. As I was riding through a section of Schaumburg, I saw a group of teenagers in a driveway looking at the crazy biker riding by, so I waved and said "Howdy!" just as I have done hundreds of times throughout the trip. One of the kids retorted "Howdy?!?!" as if he had never heard that word this far north, and with that, I knew I was near the end of my travels! I still had one more stop to make though, and that was at my good friend Swati's new condo. I saw her and her friend Kush (who had also just come back from a long trip) standing on the balcony, and then I went up to see her new place for a bit. But then I soon had to get back out and ride the final couple miles before it got completely dark.

While reading the journals of other self-contained long-distance touring cyclists, I've always gotten pretty emotional myself when their trip comes to an end. So I didn't know what the end of my tour would feel like, but it was surprisingly underwhelming in comparison. I'm thinking perhaps there's just something less dramatic about a trip that doesn't start at one end of the country and finish at the other end, and also that there's probably a big difference between being out there one month vs. three months. And maybe I just didn't face enough struggles along the way to make my homecoming feel much different than finishing a ride home from work.

But all it took was a quick scroll through my pictures with Swati (who was nice enough to bring over a few groceries) to remind me that I had just finished a hell of a lot more than a ride home from work. It was easily one of the most enjoyable months of my life, and if I had another month off work, I have no doubt that I'd still be out there riding around somewhere. Until the next time........