We fully intended to finish the ride the next day, but Peter being Peter did not want to tell any one (just in case....). So I did what I could to signal our intent by posting the picture of Peter in full ROAG kit and the day 50 sign. Any one that knows Peter well, would have known what he meant do on day 50.
We both set out to enjoy our last day. We had kind of gotten away from enjoying our days as we went. The weather was beautiful and the scenery was splendid. You could not have asked for a better finishing day.
I stopped at a civil war battle field as I felt that I should stop and try to understand one. I am not much for battle sites, but I figured that I should at least do this. I stopped at Malvern Hill which is the site of one of the most well preserved battlefields in the country. I took a mile and a half walk through the wheat fields that they had mapped out. It was the site of a battle the took over 8000 lives in one afternoon. It is really hard for me to comprehend this, and what these men must have faced. I just can't understand the carnage. So I contemplated this through my walk and then put aside the depressing thoughts and turned my attention to the happy part of the day. I caught up with Peter outside of Jamestown and had our last picnic lunch in the shade facing the water. This was a nice last lunch. Then we were off to get it done. I made Peter promise that he would not finish up with out me. If something happened that he got there first, he needed to wait down the street. But I drove straight there. It was a beautiful drive. I am going to post pictures at the end of this post. I realized that I needed champagne, so I had to find that. I only could find Blueberry Champagne and not cold, but I figured it was better than nothing. The shop owner told me that there was an open liquor law and we could not take it to the beach, but the law enforcement might look the other way if it was an obvious celebration away from the beach. So I put it on ice and went to the memorial that was the "official" finish of the 76 bike trail as known as the "Trans America Bike trail". I did not have long to wait. I just took a few pictures of the memorial and was heading back to the car to get something to do while waiting and Peter came swinging around the corner. It was fantastic. I was so proud of him. It brought tears to my eyes (it is bringing tears right now!). I snapped off some pictures. Gave him a huge kiss and headed to the car for the Champagne. By the time I got back he had some women convinced that the poor guy was all alone and they were taking his pictures for him. Since the town trolley was stopping in front of the memorial every 5 minutes or so we decided to take our celebration around to the back of the tower. Peter popped the cork of the champagne and guzzled the thing down. Apparently he was really thirsty. 10 minutes later the bottle was empty and we were on our way to the beach for the last pictures, Peter on his bike and I in my car. By the time I got parked and to the beach I found Peter in a very relaxed position. The most relaxed I had seen him all summer. He should drink more while on the bike! We finished our photo session and then headed to our hotel on the beach.
We relaxed, swam in the pool, had a great dinner out and just took the rest of the day to celebrate.
We did however decide that night to head home on Friday. We wanted to see Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg, but then we wanted to go home. We were tired of hotels.
We tried to see all three places in one day, but it was really hot and humid and it was just too much in one day. I had enough. I kept telling Peter we had our own early colonists at home that we could go see. Yorktown was interesting and there was some interesting artifacts and archeological digs going on at Jamestown, but I really did not care to see Williamsburg.
I got an email from our friend Sandy asking when we would be home. She would like to throw a surprise party for Peter. Neither of us could sleep that last night, so we got on the road somewhat early and intended to be home by around 6:45. We had good intentions, but the" Friday in the summer" traffic through Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, NYC, Hartford, and Worcester all had a different plan. We ended up not arriving home until 9:32. We found many of our friends in the driveway in the dark in lawn chairs waiting for us. We are so very lucky!
That is it for this trip. I will post pictures at the end of this post and I think I will write a wrap up post of my feeling and thoughts about this trip on one last post to follow.