05 May 2014
Palatka to St. Augustine, FL
54 miles (Total Miles = 2,937)

I’ve got sand in my shoes and my bicycle chain and I couldn’t be happier. And not just because it’s not in my tent but because it’s sand from the beach at St. Augustine – our final destination on this 2 month journey across the United States.

It’s hard to believe we’ve done it. Not so much because of the physical effort it took but more because we’ve spent each morning over the past 8 weeks getting up, preparing for, and then riding that single day. Not riding across the country but riding the one day, where the focus was on where we were and where we were headed for that particular day. Not for the next day or the day after that but for that one day laid out in front of us. And now each of those days added up equals riding across the entire country and somehow that doesn’t seem possible even though I’m standing here staring out into the Atlantic Ocean. Not the Pacific of 8 weeks ago but the Atlantic of today.

Maybe if I can take home one life lesson from this trip, if I can have one thing that really sinks in, it would be to approach every day this way. Just focus on the day in front of me and not worry too much about the days that will follow. Sure, there’s the scheduling of appointments, the planning for the future, blah blah blah, but to focus on the day at hand and really be in that day? It felt like a luxury on this trip and I do like treating myself to a little bit of luxury every now and then so why not this luxury?

It’s a pretty simple recipe for success: start with a “Map Meeting” every evening where you lay out the route for the next day (and note that it’s okay to employ the aid of a few good guides to help you with your plan), and then get up and simply live that day. You may follow the map to a T, you may get a little lost and end up temporarily off route, or you may see a better road and decide to take it instead, but the goal is still the same – to focus on the day and the destination. And once you reach that place, you say to yourself, wow, what a great ride, and you enjoy the satisfaction that comes with the accomplishment. Then you have another Map Meeting and start fresh again the next day. Obviously it works or I wouldn’t be standing here, staring out into the Atlantic Ocean, and thinking “Wow, we did it, and what a great ride.”