Saltwater

Just like NASA, I was counting down. Ten, nine, eight,... The Atlantic was seven miles away and we could literally smell it. As we turned down to cross the pedestrian/bikepath that crosses the bay west of Ocean City, some guy was pushing a stroller with twins right at us. Much too tight for us to pass them, we gave way rather than run over the toddlers. Walking now, we descended the ramp into town and looked for waves. Feeling like a woman in labor for the last 36 hours, we kept asking ourselves"isn't this the end?" Two blocks later, we felt like that same woman when the doctor is holding the baby. "It's actually over!" Oh, but not yet. I was determined to put Big O in the water. We walked it eastward down the boardwalk until it ended. Then we took off the yellow bag that served us so well and stashed it under an umbrella. The tires were buried about 4 inches in the sand as I lugged and tugged and pushed toward the surf. We weaved between sunbathers and beach bums, toddlers and teenagers, mother's and kids. If we had been stark naked we would not have drawn this much attention. From one side and the other we heard kid's asking their parents about what they were seeing. A 9.5 foot orange bike with pedals out front being pushed by a guy with a matching bandana is not something you normally see out there. When we had gone as far as we could, Laura picked up the back end and spun it around. She took a couple of pics, then we had a lady take some more for us when we were high fiving. It didn't seem like salt water was going to do the bike any good, so after a couple of big waves almost took her out to sea, we walked west for the first time in a long time. We had come as far as we could go.
The bed last night was one of those motel beds that is covered in plastic to avoid staining the mattress from a bed wetter. I'm getting older, but I don't think that was necessary. We slept poorly, maybe because the plastic rustled when we moved, or perhaps we were too excited about the day. At 7:00 we left the motel in Crisfield, and rode 20 miles to Princess Anne for breakfast. It seemed appropriate that when we walked into the diner on main street, there were about six old geezers drinking their coffee and solving the problems of the world. We've seen that all across the country, except for Kentucky. Another 30 miles and we were in Berlin, where we stopped at a farmer's market and bought some raspberries and blackberries. All of the riding today was on roads as flat as Wile E. Coyote when he's been steamrolled. There wasn't much road left after Berlin, so the countdown started. Laura is making phone calls now to our kids and some others letting them know about the end of the trip. Last night internet was unavailable, so I wrote about the day on the ferry and stored it in the computer. That post and 4 or 5 others will be on the blog as soon as someone shows me how to copy and paste them or whatever. I know that there are some readers thinking of a trip like this, so tomorrow or the next day from Tim's house I will write some about what it takes and the goods and bads. I made a partial list, but I'll have more time in the next few days. This won't be the last post but it is the last "action post." So long from Ocean City, Maryland and the Atlantic ocean.