How Do You Know Something's Over?

This was my immediate thought when I read this week's QOTW by @ecotrain... and promptly forgot about it. Good thing I still remembered in time to revisit the question, and explain how I recently learned to read the signs all around me.

The Last Day of My Epic Bike Ride

After crossing the US from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, down through Oregon and on to coastal California, I reached my designated destination one day ahead of schedule: my friend's place in Los Angeles at Thanksgiving. We had a happy reunion, at the perfect occasion, celebrating this weird American holiday with friends and food and good times. This should have also been a nice end-of-the-road celebration, marking the end of a truly successful adventure. However, I still had a good ten days before my flight back home, and a few places were beckoning to go check them out. So only two days after Thanksgiving I was back in the saddle, heading East and then South.

You can read in my previous posts about the details of how this final fortnight became the most extreme part of the entire trip. (Or you can wait for my book to come out for even more details!) I went up into higher elevations than ever before, as well as into depths below the sea level. I crossed from the mountains of Southern Cali to the desert, visited boulder-houses, passed though unreal Wild-West towns and even more surreal Palm Springs, rode past a contaminated lake, and spent a night at the anarchistic camp of Slab City. It was all fun, and certainly worth it.

But on my last day towards my final destination I was given more than just one hint by the Universe:

Dude, That's It. You've Done It! Time to Call It Quits.

My last day was not just full of those factors I've been trying to avoid ever since setting out... it was marked by them!

First of all, I had to start the day by riding 10 miles uphill (not a big deal, by that time I actually came to enjoy it), against a strong headwind (the same situation as in the previous two days... super annoying, but survivable), on the Interstate (something I made sure to avoid, and in fact, there was only one other similar stretch of my route where there was simply no other option), with NO BICYCLE signs everywhere (now this was a first! Taking the I5 over Sexton Pass in Oregon at least bicycles were allowed, with lots of accommodating shoulder. But here, if a cop stopped me, they'd probably take me back to Ocotillo, where I started that day, and force me to take a long-cut of an additional 30-50 miles... no thanx!)

But I kept on riding, battling slowly against the wind, eating up the miles little by little. At least it wasn't raining, though the sun tended to hide behind clouds, and when that happened, the wind became uncomfortably cold on my sweaty skin. This was especially bad when I had to stop to fix a flat...

Two Flats on the Same Day!

It's ironic to think how on my entire trip I only had five flats all together, but two of them happened on my last day. They were completely unrelated, as it was my rear tire that got punctured first, right on the Interstate, while the second puncture happened only about a mile before I reached my friend's property. She'd meet me there later on, and we'd drive back to L.A. the next day.

An Eerie Mood Accumulating

The last stretch of the ride led me on small roads between the Interstate and the Mexican border. The landscape was bone-dry, desolate, and littered with rusty cars and abandoned shacks. By this time the sun was mostly gone, dipping everything into a weird shadow. That's when I realized, it was the first day of December, and that beautiful Canadian Summer that we kept stretching further and further as we rode south, was also finally also over.

An Appropriate Soundtrack

I was shivering from the cold wind and exhaustion. My eyes were gazing along the border fence, which had become such a powerful an icon for so many problems of our days. And for some reason, my mind was playing this one song I must have heard over the last few days somewhere. I'm usually not too big on sad, whiny country music, but whiny was exactly what I felt like at that moment. This song came to represent my last day, the last of the last, the one where everything was indicating clearly that I had reached the end, I had exhausted my limits, I had arrived at the border. So here it is for you too: Fearless Heart by Steve Earle

Hard Times Don't Mean End Times

So after getting so many signs from everywhere around me, I understood that when something is supposed to be over you'll know... without a doubt. This is also the reason why I don't really see my current hardship in Mexico City to be an indicator that things are coming to an end. It's different, and so my attitude is according. Sure, change is always needed, preferably in the right direction. But as for the end-times? No, they are different. A lot like the last day of my ride actually...