Day 83: Last Exit to Anacortes

Saturday (Tomorrow is the end of the Northern Tier)

It is very late, and I am very tired, but when I ride into Anacortes I would like to be completely caught up on this blog. Although a good question would be “why I am so tired?”… I only rode 48 miles today. I woke up at 9am. I took lots of breaks. There really is no reason to be this tired.

I wake up at 9am and as usual, I flip on the TV to coax me out of my sleep. The Phantom Menace is on; I sleep a while longer. This motel has a 10am check out, so I rush through a hurried shower and am out of the door by 10:07am. The Dicksons instructed me to eat at a diner in Marblemount that had a large sign in front that reads “GOOD FOOD”, but it didn’t open for an hour and was 3 miles in the opposite direction, so I’ll have to save that for some other time. Apparently the owner is an old woman who bakes cinnamon rolls and gives them away to anyone who shows up the day that they open the North Cascade passes every year. She’s been doing this for 35 years.

I ride to Rockport where I eat breakfast and look for my sunglasses, which appear to have gone missing. From there, it is a short ride to Concrete, where “THIS BOYS LIFE” took place. I stop at the library and check my email. End up wasting an hour and a half on the internet.

I head out to Sedro Wooley, and it’s A LOT farther than I had been expecting. I stock up on snacks and head out. Beauitful ride along the Skagit River. It is definitely worth the added mileage to get off of HWY 20 and onto the back roads.

I roll into Sedro-Wooley in the mid-afternoon and there is a Burger King right at the first main intersection. It has Wifi too! I kill a few hours there and then head out to Stephanie’s house, about 5 miles north of town. Stephanie was my roommate in Brooklyn for about 7 months, before she moved to Los Angeles. What are the odds that she would be temporarily living RIGHT on the Northern Tier at the exact time I would be riding through? The ride to her place follows the ACA route for about 3 miles and then continues on some back roads. So beautiful. I watch the sun set over a hill in the distance.

I arrive at Stephanie’s place. She makes a great dinner, and we catch up on what’s been going on the past few years. I really like Stephanie; she’s just a super cool person, and a really positive influence… without being annoyingly positive.

Tomorrow is the last day of The Northern Tier. I’m going to keep my stuff at Stephanie’s place, ride to Anacortes for the day, and then ride back before sunset. I am excited, but as my good friend “Anonymous Brooklyn Blogger” (doyouthinkwehavetime.blogspot.com) will attest to… accomplishments are never realized without the slow and subtle onslaught of emptiness that comes with no longer having a goal to be working towards. That is, until a new goal manifests itself unto you...

By this time tomorrow I will be telling everyone who will listen that I just crossed the North American Continent on my bicycle in 84 days, though I am not really the type to yell, or talk to strangers.... so I'll probably just be smiling to myself with a smug grin. Nobody will have a clue about the personal victory that was just realized.

But they might ask themselves "what the hell is he smiling at?"