Updates

Chris married the lovely Corrie Thompson on September 13, 2008 in Washington, D.C.

I moved to Seattle a few days after the wedding and am now happily commuting all over the city on my bike. More stories are now being told here: http://nuckolsandwich.blogspot.com/

THE BORDER

I'm going to blame the fact that is has taken me 9 months to write the final post for this blog on the fact that I didn't have a working computer - and thus a good place to download the final pictures - until a week ago. Repeatedly, people have come up to me and asked, "So did you make it to the border?" I apologize for all the unresolved suspense but yes, we did make it! We were able to cut out about 15 miles of industrial L.A. thanks to Uncle John Nuckols and his purchase of a bike rack. Our final day of riding, we started from San Elijo Beach - a 10 minute drive from my parents' house - and went the 50 miles to the border. Mom picked us up at 2pm and that night we had a huge party at our house. For weeks, we doubted whether we had time to make it all the way to Mexico since I already had a plane ticket back to New York. We're not really sure how all the mileage fit in, but somehow even without excess stress or enormous pressure, we made it.



The border itself was crazy. While the American side is desolate with few paved roads, the Mexican side is built up all the way to the fence. I could have reached my hand through and touched the beach-goers on the other side. We had a fascinating conversation with a Border Patrol officer until he got a call and zipped off in his beach. He said that he has the most exciting job in the world because everyday there's something different: fence-jumpers, swimmers, boaters, sprinters, etc. For security reasons, he wouldn't let us take his pictures, but he did say we could photograph his jeep. Later, I saw someone on the Mexican side speaking into a walki-talki with his eyes on our new friend's jeep. I wonder what he was plotting.





Nine months later, I still have the remains of a bad tan-line on my leg and I still get homesick for the road. I'm hoping to do cross country, the Lewis and Clark Trail or New Zealand. Anyone want in?