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This is it—the last day. My parents dropped me off where I stopped yesterday, and I started riding. It’d be 65 flat, paved miles to the border. It seemed to take forever for me to get to the mountains that had been looming in the distance. When I finally got there, I was still nowhere near close to being done. I stared at the white line on the road and kept pedaling; I’ve gotten pretty decent at that by this point.

Something on the road caught my eye, and I hopped off the muni to investigate. It was a tarantula! I dug out my camera and tried to get some shots from its level. The camera attracted the tarantula, or maybe it wanted to eat me. Either way, it chased me around as I tried to take its picture.

Fourteen miles from the border, I started riding like I was drunk. I didn’t want to accept it, but I knew what it meant—a flat tire. I’d suffered multiple thorn punctures in my tire and decided that I’d had enough; I was ready to quit the ride right there. Fortunately, riding to my parents’ car at the border was the shortest evacuation route, so I had no choice but to swap out the tube and ride on.

I was dismayed to see closed gates and ‘restricted area’ signs at the border crossing. The flat had set me back, and I arrived about 20 minutes after the crossing closed for the day. I ducked under the gate to seek Mexico anyway; stopping 100 yards from the goal after 88 days and 2755 miles was not an option! I went past the closed inspection station up to a second gate. I went under that one and took a step into Mexico as the Mexican guards with big guns looked on with amusement.

I MADE IT!