August 3rd:
NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO BE IN THE VAN ON THE DAY THE TEAM ARRIVES AT THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
I was assigned to the host van with Jessie this day. Host van is debatably the worst van to be in because not only do you have to go begging around town for food, but you are also separated from your team for much of the day. At least in water van, you’re chalking the route, making water stops along the way, and seeing your teammates often. You feel more connected in water van than you do in host van. Unfortunately, Jessie and I would be missing out on the team’s arrival to the Pacific Ocean on Cannon Beach, a beach I’ve wanted to go to for a very long time. In fact, upon first signing up for Bike & Build, my first choice of route was Central U.S. which ends on Cannon Beach (no regrets on getting NC2SD, though… obviously). We received snapchats all morning of the team celebrating on Cannon Beach, which infuriated us. When we arrived to drop the food off there, as they had spent about 2 hours on the beach and decided to just have lunch instead of going any further before eating, we honestly could not even look them in the eye. How do you know that you’ve officially biked across the country?? WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT THE PACIFIC OCEAN. How is it at all fair that some people get to take part in such a glorious and meaningful moment when others are confined to the smelly, cramped, and somehow always wet interior of the van?? Not fair at all.
Anyway – when we got there, we got out of the van, handed the keys to someone and told the team to get the food out of the van themselves. We had every right to be bitter. Sure, our team had decided that we would not dip our tires officially until the following day, when we’d have a more formal celebration at the beach in Tillamook, but we were still angry. I think everyone could understand that. Jessie and I grabbed some freshly baked bread and a bag of grapes that we’d had donated to us and marched down to the beach ourselves, where we spent about an hour relaxing and trying to forget about it. It was unsuccessful and we were still angry.
We tried to take some photos and fake happiness:
^^^Notice that we put on our jerseys so we at least kind of felt like we biked there.
We missed out on an extremely gorgeous and hilly (again, I LOVE climbing so this was also tragic) ride alongside the Oregon coast, with many scenic overlooks along the way. We stopped to take photos at these overlooks.
When we drove by members of our team, we waved out the window and tried to act happy when we most certainly were not. We arrived at the host and spent the first hour or so dodging our teammates as they came in and talked to the host church members about how incredible the ride was and how awesome it was to finally arrive at the Pacific. We couldn’t handle it.
We were assigned to home stays, and luckily, Jessie and I were assigned along with Hannah to the same home. Jessie and I had decided it would be so hard to be separated and to have to listen to our teammates continue to tell the home stay hosts about the ride. We were glad we were together so we could be bitter for just one night and sleep it off until the following day. Hannah was admittedly a little frightened to be with us, given how upset we’d been all day, but if anyone had to be with us we’re glad it was Hannah.
We spent some time with the cows that live “next door” to the home we stayed at.
We called it a night early and tried to become more excited about the following day, when we’d have our front wheel dip ceremony as a TEAM!
Baltimore to Portland with 4K for Cancer 