Day 84 – Mechanicsville, Virginia to Yorktown, Virginia

The End of the Road

On Wednesday I had breakfast at the hotel and was waiting for it to warm up a little before heading out for the last day of riding.  But even though the temperature was in the 30s I couldn’t wait too long as it was going to be 82 miles and I didn’t want to arrive in Yorktown too late in the afternoon.

Leaving Mechanicsville wasn’t that bad, but the first intersection I came to with all the noise, traffic lights, construction cones and debris on the road was a mess.

When I finally got out of the area and on to the backroads I was going through some great Civil War battlefield areas. It was really fascinating. Roadside historical signs are everywhere, but if I was to read them all I’d never finish. I was ready to get to the coast.

After about twenty miles I got to the Capitol Trail.  This parallels the highway for around  30 miles and cars aren’t allowed on it, so it was a nice stretch to ride on. A minor complaint I had was that there was a slight headwind, but I guess it was good to have a little adversity on the final day.

Right at noon I stopped in a town called Charles City.  Here they have a neat little  restaurant called the Courthouse Grille.  It’s such an out of the way place and you would think that nobody would be in there having lunch, but it was packed with locals and a group of cyclists.  I was getting questions about the trip and wanted to hang out longer, but I still had 40 miles to go and needed to leave.

After that it was back on the trail and trying to keep up a good pace.  When the trail ended I got on a road called Colonial Parkway. It was very wide and traffic was light, which I hoped would be the case all the way into Yorktown. After a mile or so I started crossing wide waterways, which seemed like a sign that I was getting near the end.

I had to leave the Colonial Parkway for a detour through the historic town of Williamsburg, as bikes weren’t allowed through a tunnel on the parkway. Here in Williamsburg people are dressed in the time period of the 1700s and stay in character as you pass through town. I  wanted to stay and have a look around, but by now it was 3:30 and there was still a ways to go.

When I got back onto Colonial Parkway, the traffic situation had changed. Lots of cars had entered from other roads and were driving past in both directions. It was now louder and much more hectic.  I had to do nine miles on this stretch before the turn I was supposed to make and it was getting colder with slightly more wind. All I wanted to do was complete the ride.

It seemed to take forever, but I finally got to the turnoff that would take me to the finish line. In this case, the end of the Trans Am route is at the Yorktown Victory Monument. (Yorktown is where the British surrendered to end the Revolutionary War in 1781. About a week later an idea was raised to build the monument… and 100 years later they finally got around to doing it.)

I stopped at a museum to ask for directions to the coast and monument, as mine were confusing.  Here they had a local map which made things easy and I saw that I was very, very close. All I had to do was take a right, go down a hill and bear to the left. This would put me on Water Street, which sounded fitting.

So I got back on the bike and started off, going down the hill. The view was obstructed and I couldn’t see anything until I rounded the corner at the bottom of it.  Then all the sudden, after all the miles put in, there it was. The coast of Virginia.  I pedaled slowly up Water St, admiring the view, and then stopped on a sidewalk by a beach area. A young couple was walking by and I asked them to take a photo.

But I still needed to get to Victory Monument to complete the ride at the route’s official end.  After climbing up one last little steep hill on Read St, I took a left on Main and then saw the monument, where I rode up to it and got off the bike. After 84 days on the road and 4,377 miles ridden, the trip was officially over.

A couple was there with their children and I asked them if they would take my picture.  They were Nathan and Sara who had come down from Maryland. It was great to meet them as they were excited about being there for the conclusion of the trip.  And it was fitting to have nice people at the end as I had met so many along the way.

After lingering around the monument for a while and taking it all in, I still had a few miles to do to get to the motel where I was staying.  It was very busy with traffic by this time and I was glad to pull into the parking lot.  As I got off the bike one last time I thought back to getting on it for the first time in Florence, Oregon on August 4th. Now it really seemed like the trip was finished.

It was a good evening as my cousin Ron drove up from Virginia Beach to have dinner with me. I haven’t seen him in 15 years and it was great to catch up on things. He’s a cardiologist and at some points on the trip I wondered if I would need his services.

So that’s it. Just like that the trip is over. It was well worth all the planning and pedaling.

Thanks to those who have been keeping up with the blog and to those who posted comments along the way.

I’ll have one more post by the beginning of next week with some afterthoughts and a few statistics, so check back if you have the time.