I'm Baaaaack

Hey all,

So as many of you know, I got back from biking across the country last Wednesday morning. It was quite the return trip home: I took a bus out of Vancouver to Seattle on Monday, the 21st, at 12 Pacific time, getting into Seattle at about 5:30 (after a huge delay at the border). I caught a city bus to the airport, checked my bag, and then headed back up to downtown to check out the city and grab dinner since my flight wasn't until 11:20.

Seattle is a pretty cool city. I ate at a place called Georgio's Subs (delicious) in a mall - Westtown Place, I think it was called. Or something like that. There's a monorail that runs through at least part of the city, but the station at the mall was closed so I didn't get a chance to take it. The space needle is a couple miles north of the main downtown area, and I walked maybe 10 blocks toward it - close enough to get a pretty good picture, before turning back around. I wanted to catch a bus back to Quest Field (where the Seahawks play and where I knew I could transfer to a bus going to the airport), but couldn't really figure out the transit system, so I had to walk about 30 blocks to get there. I had plenty of time though, so it wasn't a big deal. And it was a good way to see the city, except for when I ended up in the obviously bad part of town. But after Vancouver, it couldn't really bother me. More on that later.

Got a bus back to the airport, got on my plane, and flew to Cincinnati. I managed to get some sleep on the way, but I also was lucky enough to watch a thunderstorm out my window somewhere over the midwest. Though the space we were traveling through was completely cloudless, about 30 miles away was a very active storm, and it was so cool to see lightning from above. I watched for about 20 minutes before deciding to go back to sleep.

It was a really strange feeling, flying back. Not so much the abstract idea of taking 8 hours to fly what had taken us 10 weeks to bike, but the very specific feeling of flying almost directly over our route and looking down over it. Though the plane didn't have one of those screens showing you where you are, I have to imagine that, going from Seattle to Cincinnati, we were pretty close to the route we'd biked. And just like we saw on Route 2, I could see towns every 20 miles or so, spread out fairly evenly along a straight line. Remembering going town to town on my bike juxtaposed with seeing two towns at the same time, even if they were not the same ones, gave me at once a sentimental and ironic feeling. Mostly, though, I just wanted to get some sleep.

My layover in Cincinnati was about an hour long, and I walked around the terminal checking out my breakfast options for most of that time. I settled on a smoothie from the Grove. Good choice.

I landed in Newark at about 10, and was greeted shortely thereafter by Ryan and George, who'd come down to pick me up. We took the monorail to Ryan's car, dropped off my bag, and headed to the train station to catch a ride into Manhattan.

Noon on Tuesday in the city, we couldn't think of too much to do. We walked from Penn up to Central Park, ultimately going 40 blocks, as we exited the park at 72nd street. We saw (and were part of, I suppose), the filming of one of those, we think, Truth commercials. There were a bunch of ice sculptures of pregnant women with plastic fetuses inside, and placards informed us something like 20,000 babies lose their mothers each year to complications from smoking. Damn. So anyway, if you ever see that on TV, look for me, Ryan, and George.

We decided to walk down to the Empire State Building and see about heading up to the observation deck, but found out when we got there that tickets were $16/pop. Since not only are we poor college students, but none of us had our cameras anyway, we decided to scrap the idea. Walking out, George had the brilliant idea of asking if the Mets were home that night. I texted google (ask me about this - you can get sports scores, the weather, step by step directions, movie times... it's amazing) and found out sure enough, they were. It was about 4 and the game started at 7, so we walked the few blocks left back to Penn, got dinner, took the A line to Times Square, and caught the express 7 to Shea, getting there about an hour before the first pitch.

For the same price as it would have cost to see the city from 1000 feet up (which I'd already done that morning anyway), we got excellent seats - upper deck, but behind homeplate, and we had an excellent view of the field. It was my first time sitting up in the stratosphere at Shea, but honestly, they may have been the best seats I've ever had there. We'd had plans of moving down, but not only was the stadium packed (49,000+ on a Tuesday night!?) but our seats were just that good.

And then we witnessed, by all accounts, the most exciting game of the season. Albert Pujols hit a grand slam and a 3 run homer for the Cards, giving them a 7-1 lead. But the Mets kept fighting back. After hitting a solo home run earlier in the game, Carlos Delgado went yard again with a grand slam in the 5th - his 400th career home run. The stadium was jumping. It was amazing! I've never heard it so loud! And of course he came out for a curtain call, at which point it just got louder. We saw some great defense, great individual pitching efforts (including the first Met appearance for Mota and a great double play pitch by submariner Chad Bradford). But the Mets were still behind. "Man, it would be a great cap to the day if they came back," George said. "You don't understand," I answered. "My summer started in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It's ending in Shea Stadium tonight. If the Mets don't win, it was all for naught..."

To the bottom of the 9th we go. The Mets are down 7-6. Reyes leads off, so our chances are good. But when he grounds out, the stadium seems to deflate. Lo Doca comes up with a single to right, though, and reinvigorates us. Beltran's at the plate, against Jason Isringhausen, a former Met and one of the best closers in the game. Both are having a great season. Beltran was having a better night: he rockets the first pitch he sees over the right field wall. A walk off home run. The Mets mob him at the plate. The crowd goes nuts. "MVP! MVP! MVP!" No one starts to leave for at least 10 minutes. What a great way to end my summer.

It takes us 2 hours to get back to Ryan's car, still parked in short term at Newark. The 7 to Times Square, the A line to Penn, NJ transit to the airport, and the monorail to the parking garage. I got home 35 hours after I left Vancouver, having taken a bus, plane, monorail, train, subway, and car. Needless to say, I was pretty tired.

So I've been home for a little more than a week now, and I miss Bike and Build like crazy. More on that later. On Tuesday, I got my wisdom teeth pulled and have been pretty much layed up since. It's given me some time to chill though, which is appreciated, but being so immobile after being so active for 10 weeks is killing me. Hopefully in a few days I can get back out on my bike. In the meantime, I've enjoyed catching up with people, though I'd rather talk in person, and then on the phone, before AIM, but it suffices. Over the next few weeks I'm going to be posting lots of B&B stories (and pictures! when I get them), so look for those. And of course you can always call... I can't talk too much right now, but I'd love to hear from you!