At the moment, I'm in a Travelodge in San Luis Obispo...the night before last, I was at a Super 8 in San Simeon. Tonight, I'll be at the state park in Oceana, a mere 15 miles from here. It was either that, or a 59-mile ride with a 980-climb at the end of it to Lompoc. That didn't seem like it would be much fun, so I opted for a short day today and a shorter ride to Lompoc on Saturday. Then, 35 miles to El Capitan State Park on Sunday, unless I feel like pressing on another 16 miles to Santa Barbara, which I very well might.

So there's a distinct possibility that I'll be finished with the trip on Sunday, or Monday at the latest.

I'm not at all sure how I feel about that. I've been ready to be done with this for a while, but now that the end is fast approaching, my feelings are almost too complex to put into words. It's been such a long time...I have no idea what it will be like to not live this way. It's a bit frightening.

Also a bit frightening is the return of the old medicine ball in the chest...I think, but I'm not sure, that I can attribute this to too many sugary sodas over the past couple of days. I say this because my mind is fairly calm, but my body is ready to jump out of its own skin, and the only thing I've done differently lately is have drinks that are loaded up with high fructose corn syrup...I'm planning to use my mom's glucometer once I reach Santa Barbara, to see if there's any correlation between my blood sugar and certain body sensations that mimic anxiety.

So, today, I get to do a short ride and then, basically, hang out in a state park all day, which is not really ideal when I'm jumpy like this. If there wasn't a big climb between here and Lompoc, I'd do the 60 miles, but I know that with the climb at the end it'd be a long and miserable ride, with another even higher climb to do first thing the next morning.

Now, I've got to get packed up and checked out...

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Checkout time was 11AM, and I only had 15 miles to ride. I really didn't want to arrive at the park at 1PM and then sit around reading at the picnic table until nightfall. I didn't want to eat camp food, either.

So, I rode 12.5 miles and grabbed a motel room in Pismo Beach. Spent the day flying my kite, ate steak and lobster, watched the sun set over the pier. Because that's what I felt like doing. So I did it. Felt good. Made me use fewer words.

Anyway...yeah, there's been a paucity of words on these pages lately...something like six entries since I left San Francisco. Some of that was due to the nature of the terrain around Big Sur: mountains on one side, ocean on the other, and curving coastline served to block reception, so that even my Kung Fu could not bring in the signal. Now, I'm able to get online just using the EVDO modem, without any of my gadgetry.

Which doesn't mean I've got anything much to say. The 25th would've been four months on the road (yes, the "On The Road: Week X" categories are wrong; I'll fix it later when I'm back in real space). I've got a couple of tough days ahead before it's all over, and I'm more focused on getting over a 980- and 1,200-foot climb than I am on What I Did This Summer And What It Meant To Me. That's for later...a later that's still a little difficult to think about.

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So this is it. One more morning of saddling up and pedaling off. One more climb. 52.6 more miles. Then...it's done.

I'm in Lompoc now, in a Motel 6, with the television making inane cartoon noises in the background. Tomorrow night, I'll be at my mom's house in Santa Barbara, and the next morning...I won't have anywhere to go. Nowhere to pedal. No campgrounds or motels to find my way to, no routes to program into the GPS, no high-energy foodstuffs to acquire, no Gatorade to chug.

In the coming weeks, I'll be sorting out the site, returning it to its pre-On The Road state. I've got thousands of pictures and a couple of hundred video clips to go through, so there will be more imagery to come.

And, of course, there will be more writing...the stories and thoughts I haven't told you, the inevitable What I Learned essays, and the whole Astonished Head Moves To San Francsico saga.

115 days on the road.

And the journey ends tomorrow.

How'd that happen?

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...there was the Big Not Moving.

Much of today's ride was spent on the shoulder of higher traffic roads like 101. I got two flats - a pinchflat on the right rear of the trailer, going flub flub flub after I hit a big rock at high speed on a downhill, and then the rear tire on the trike, about four miles from my mom's house. The rear wheel is a pain in the ass to change, because everything has to come off the trike, so I just pumped it up twice and pulled into the driveway at 3:50 PM.

And I ran over some road lizards and saw a mostly dead tarantula and bonked and and and and and...god I'm tired.

This, then, is the last official entry from The Road.

More later.

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