Day 42 – Live Oak Springs, CA to San Diego, CA (84 mi)

Today is our last day of biking and we all feel a bit nostalgic. We aren’t exactly sad the trip is ending because it is time and we are excited for our return home to friends and family, but we also feel aware that a beautiful chapter of our lives is coming to a close.

Today we had a long day of biking, but it was also mainly downhill. We started high in the coastal range and descended all the way to the pacific. We all wanted to finish at the ocean together, so Nalani parked the car near the beach and took her bike on a trolley to meet up with Carsten and me sixteen miles from our destination. The last sixteen miles were predominantly along bike paths, which made for a nice end.

We didn’t make it to the pacific until almost 5pm. We spent a while on the beach riding through the sand and taking victory photos and exclaiming at the success of our trip. In the past two months Carsten has biked approximately 2000 miles. Nalani has biked 1130 miles and I have biked 1000 miles. We all feel incredibly proud and grateful.

We didn’t spend too long at the beach however because we were all famished. We ate at a gourmet burger joint for our celebratory dinner. Our burgers were delicious, but still didn’t rival the burgers at Octave, my favorite Indiana burger joint and probably my favorite restaurant (not counting the Purple Porch of course).

Tonight and tomorrow night we are staying at Campland on the bay. It is a campground our family stayed at years ago on a family trip to San Diego. The campground has everything, including a coffee shop and daily ping pong tournaments.