By the end of the ride we will have cycled over 3,750 miles, and in
retrospect, there is not a lot of the routing I would change.
However, today's route would be one for consideration.

Route 2, which had been so good to us for so long, deteriorated into
one of the worse strips of asphalt we have biked on. Not only was
there often no shoulder, but the crumbling and poorly repaired right
side of the road too often forced us out into the middle of the only
east bound lane. I apologise to all the pre-holiday week-end traffic
we inconvenienced. The road was so bad, one of Martin's
forty-five
pound panniers unhooked twice while bouncing around on the road.
That will teach him to speed.

The hot weather seemed to have passed. Even though it was in the low
seventies, it felt cool. It was very humid, and always on the verge
of rain. But all we received were a few light sprinkles.

We are now all checked into The Charles Inn in downtown Bangor. It
is an historic building with a lot of charm, even if the floors slop
a bit. I think Stephan King wrote a story about this hotel.

We all started finalizing our return plans today. In one way,
everyone is happy that tomorrow is the last day. We miss family and
friends back home. But in another way, I think we are a bit sad that
this odyssey is drawing to a close.

We set out to cycle across the country, and by this time tomorrow,
we will have accomplished that. I suppose we all had different
reasons for making the sacrifices this adventure required, and I
hope most of those reasons were fulfilled. There were some great
days and some terrible days, but tomorrow, when we all reach the
coast; the memories of the terrible days will begin to fade.

But this is beginning to sound like my summary, so I will end the
daily report here.

Just two more things I would like to add. We all went out for Thai
food tonight and there was one extra fortune cookie left on the
plate tonight. Ken figured that the "fortune" therefore belonged to
the whole group. It read: Success is not achieved by great strength, but by
perseverance.

It did take perseverance to pedal 3,702 miles and climb 132,193 feet.