Day Sixty-Six: St. George - Charleston

TODAY IS THE DAY!!! It was a bittersweet morning, knowing that this would be our last ride for quite some time, and being extremely excited and weirded out all at the same time. It was somewhat difficult to imagine being so close to the end, being that our new normal had settled, and we had become accustomed to the simplicity of worrying only about where we might find food and water, or where we would sleep for the night. We still had a 60-mile ride ahead of us, however, and though our minds were in Charleston, we refused to feel any sort of relief until we physically arrived. We chowed down another continental breakfast, then took our time in the motel, packing and chatting in anticipation. When the time finally came to checkout, we rolled out of the parking lot and across the street to the travel stop, where we filled up our water bottles with frigid ice that would soon turn to swampy water, then we stole one too many Cinnabon samples from the front counter before making like thieves out of St. George.

Though it was our last day, it felt just as grueling as the rest, and Charleston seemed a light-year away. The heat was sweltering and we glistened with sticky sweat, and I’m confident that we looked like monsters. We took a break at a gas station for about 30 minutes, and to our surprise, toward the end of our stop, a man approached us with a tempting offer: a ride into Charleston. We laughed at the irony: so many days we spent in need of a lift, but without a willing driver, and yet here, on the one occasion where we refused to get a ride, a stranger offers his help without any prodding. As we left the station, we told him that as much as we appreciated his offer, we couldn’t accept—after all, it was our last ride! “What about a little boost?” he asked in response. Alright, we’d take it. Our knees were inflamed and weak from the previous ride, the sun was beating, and if anything, the boost would make our ride into Charleston a little more enjoyable.

Ron, the friendly stranger, told us to ride on until he came back in his candy apple red Jeep with a bicycle rack to rescue us. We rode for some time but were quickly tormented by the absolute worst drivers and worst road yet: it had narrowed down to a one-lane-each-way, and the shoulder had completely disappeared. We were forced to ride inside the white line, which meant we were holding up traffic, and everyone on the road was livid. One semi rolled up next to Slater until he was only a foot away, then slowed down to a crawl and blew a plume of thick, black smoke straight into his face. With that and being flipped off, honked at, yelled at, etc., we had had enough of the highway and rolled to a sidestreet until Ron returned. While we were waiting, a woman in a small sedan pulled aside quickly and began to rant, “Are you guys alright? My husband is a cyclist and he would kill me if I didn’t tell you that you NEED to get off of this road. You’ll die out here.” I would’ve said it was dramatic if it weren’t for already having ridden on it—and it was true. So when Ron returned, he really did come to our rescue, and we lifted the rigs onto the rack and piled into his spunky jeep for a haul down the road.

Ron was a pastor from Summerville, SC, and also a passionate middle school teacher. As we drove toward the city, he filled us with stories and history of Charleston, and we became more and more excited to reach our destination. We watched anxiously out of the window as we approached our drop-off point, which was outside of the city, because we refused to be driven to our endpoint. He dropped us across from an immense, incredible bridge that straddled the river that would lead into the Atlantic Ocean, and we instantly felt our journey coming to a close. We thanked him and took off, me without a helmet (because I forgot it when we got in the car… whoops… good thing it was the last day), and we rode with mixed emotions across an absolutely epic landscape. We crossed the bridge and rolled downhill, further and further, until we saw the beautiful, green sign: “Charleston.” CHARLESTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did it. We f’in did it.

I can hardly put into words the crazy emotions we felt as we hit our goal—and so, honestly, I’m not going to try. For everyone who has been following along, we can’t thank you enough for the support you’ve given us over the past two months, and to those who helped us along the way, we can only hope to pay it forward. So, with that… look out for a book! ;)