The end but not The End

I'll be trying to do this last post justice, recapping the experience of my lifetime to this point.  We hit the Puget Sound three days ago.  My bike has been packed up and shipped, hopefully to the correct address.  Everyone I had known for the last two and a half months has scattered, either back home to the east or around the Seattle area.  Myself?  I'm writing from Bremerton, a small town nestled in a peninsula west of Seattle.  I slept alone, in a bed, for the first time in a long time last night.  I didn't wake up prematurely because of someone else's alarm.  It was at once glorious and awful.  I've been keeping tabs on bike and builders over the last few days, and the overarching feeling seems to be a unanimous melancholy.  I can't speak for anyone else, but as expected I feel incredibly lazy.  Seattle's been a lot of fun, but God do I miss my bicycle!  I can't wait to put it back together and go for a nice long ride.  

But let me give you a slight recap of our triumphant ride into the city!  We began the morning full of pep, and with more screaming involved than I ever anticipated so early in the day.  Rather than feeling sad as I expected, it seemed everyone had more enthusiasm than we had when we left Providence so many weeks ago.  So much enthusiasm, in fact, that some people tipped over on their bicycles.  Well, Katharine did.  Two minutes into the ride.  It was great.  From Everett we rode through a labyrinth of busy suburban streets, all characteristically pointing towards civilization.  Finally, after months of small towns we were finally witnessing the trappings of a big city.  Admittedly it was a bit of a culture shock, and we were still in the suburbs.  

The bike path was the highlight of the ride for myself and I'm sure many others.  It's funny though; after months of riding on roads with cars, the bike path probably proved more dangerous.  There were a million cyclists on the path into the city, many of them no-nonsense types that were flying.  And there were thirty of us, going relatively slow and really not paying enough attention.  I'm surprised that there weren't any collisions.  Especially since we were so in awe of our surroundings the whole time.  

The whole ride I was insanely jealous of Hana, who lives in Seattle and gets to experience the Sammamish Park Trail on a regular basis, because I've never been on a more gorgeous bike trail.  And I've been on a lot.  We spent the majority of the ride hugging what must have been Lake Sammamish, cutting through millionaire suburbs with wildflowers and blackberry patches all over the place.  By the time we saw the Space Needle in the distance I'm sure all of us wanted to move to Sea-town.  The bike trail spat us out somewhere around Fremont, where the ride took a very interesting turn.

We knew beforehand that the ride into Seattle would be somewhat by the seat of our pants.  Up until getting into the city proper we'd managed to pretty much stay on course.  That all changed when we got into Fremont, where we were greeted by draw bridges and stairwells.  Let me tell you, it was quite a sight seeing thirty cyclists walking their bikes down five flights of stairs.  From there, it was only a few bumps and scratching our heads sessions from Alaskan Way, the road that would take us to Alki Beach.  

Like the rest of the ride through the city, getting to Alki Beach was...confusing.  However, after reconvening back on yet another bike path, disrupting cyclist and pedestrian traffic, and allowing sweeps to lead (essentially making us "Sweepless in Seattle",get it?), we managed to make it to the Sound.  With the backdrop of roaring applause from our family and friends, we proceeded to strip down to our chamois and jump into the Puget Sound.  A bike and build tradition?  Yes.  Probably a bad idea?  Probably.  But I've never screamed so loud and hugged anyone so hard and it all felt worth it.  

They-they being bike and build alumni-told us not to expect any profound moment after getting to our destination.  They told us that every day was significant in and of itself and that if we went looking for some cathartic mind expanding experience we wouldn't find it.  They were right about the significance of every day.  I'll carry the whole trip with me for the rest of my life.  But I still think that Seattle stands alone for me, that I truly understood the depth of my affection for the group as I was embracing them in the Sound.  We're a dysfunctional group of people for certain, and the trip had no shortage of bumps and squalls.  But when we leapt into icy cold water, we were family.  My mind goes back to a man we met in a baptist church in Ohio, who told Brook and I that we were his brothers and sisters, and that we had to be that for each other.  And so we are.