Habits die hard.  We had no where to go this morning, could have caught up on sleep, but we were both awake before 5 am.

I started checking bike shops in the area for a place to ship bikes home, and started seriously considering flights home.

Barb got up and began collecting laundry for a last load before we packed.   And we both were unpacking our panniers and separating things that would go back in carry-on from things destined for boxes and UPS.

At 6, we joined Don and Kari, his precious canine companion, for a walk to their favorite streetside coffee kiosk. On the way down and back the flowers blossoming everywhere reminded me that we were in California.

We returned from coffee, and began contacting bike shops to ship our bikes home.  There were two bike shops in the neighborhood.  The closest was Terra Rhythm but they didn't open until 11, so while Barb worked on a second load of laundry, Don and I headed to Home Depot to get boxes to ship gear home.

When we returned,  it was just past 11, and while we hadn't been able to reach the shop by phone, we decided to just push our bikes  to the store and see what could be done.  We got to the front of the store at 11:20, but the door was locked and no lights were on. Hmmm.  To pass time, we crossed the street to a convenience store and Barb treated me to a soda.  While we sipped our drinks outside, a van pulled up in front of the shop and a young man in a cycling jersey got out with a set of keys and opened up the shop.  We quickly crossed back over to the shop and were about to step inside the store when the man stepped out.  We told him what we needed, and he apologized that he couldn't help.  As of Monday, the store was officially closed.  He was just a mechanic at the store picking up his personal equipment, and was as shocked at the closing as we were.  But he did offer us great advice.  We should book the shipping itself using bikeflights.com, then take the shipping papers and our bikes to the other local shop for boxing.  FedEx would then pick up the boxed bikes.

After calling the other shop, Bermie's Bikes, to confirm the method we did exactly as he suggested.  Then we rode the bikes to Bernie's,  and by early next week we hope to have our bikes back home.

After walking back to Don's, we ordered a pizza for lunch, and seriously began filling 3 boxes each with gear we didn't want to haul through the airport.

Barb and I then reserved flights for tomorrow,  and a shuttle to the airport.

We've since shipped the boxes with UPS, and I finally got a chance to finish yesterday's blog post.

Then it was out to The Souplantation for supper.

We're back at Don's and settling in for the night.  The shuttle will be here at 5:45.

Barb's been keeping track of mileage on her cycling odometer.  For the record we've ridden a total of 3495 miles in the past 9 weeks. Barb had 2 flats before she picked up that lucky horseshoe.  I had 2 before the horseshoe and 17 or 18 afterwards. I'll have to run a statistical analysis on that.

I did learn my lesson, and refrained from saying anything satirical about California when we came across a second office chair a few days back.  And it seems to have effectively helped me avoid flats for the last days of our tour.  But now that my bike is safely boxed, and will be leaving California in a day or two, here goes.  The second chair was overturned and far into the ditch, an example of a California curtailing its budget shortfall by closing rest stops for cyclists.

Some of our emotional response on finishing our adventure has faded, but we're deeply satisfied with our experience.  We owe so much to the many people who made this adventure possible and provided such a rich experience on the road.

We're both anxious to return to family and friends we haven't seen for a while, and return not as the same people who left 9 weeks ago from that beach in St. Augustine, but with a deeper appreciation of possibilities realized and a renewed faith in the goodness of people everywhere.