The rumors are true, we have made it to California! The final state of our near 4 month journey is now comfortably under our feet. It's been a long and exciting road to get to this point, and I'm sure these last few days on the road will only get better.
Last night as Dan told you was spent along side The Colorado River. We were so excited to have been invited to a spot right on the river. It will go down in history as one of the best days of the trip, just as this morning's run will go down as one of the most unique.
For as long as I can remember we've tossed around the idea of a "Night Run". The concept of a Night Run is pretty self-explanatory, you run at night. With a large shoulder and little traffic on route 95, we decided last night/this morning would be the perfect opportunity for a night run. The alarm went off at about 1am and we all rolled around for a while. "Are we really doing this?" "Andy get up" "Do we have any Pop-Tarts left?" were just a few of the things whispered this morning. If any of us had felt at all unsafe, the plan was to just set up shop on the side of the road until it got a little lighter out. However we all felt perfectly safe with a large shoulder, plenty of room to jump off to the side if necessary, and virtually no traffic. It was so peaceful and beautiful out this morning. When we started there was a 3/4 moon out that dimly lit up the mountains. After a couple hours the moon was gone and we were surrounded by "literally" hundreds of stars.
We moved at a really good pace all morning and got to the outskirts of Blythe as the sun began to rise. We had a great view, there were aqueducts bringing water to the farmland from The Colorado River, and the reflection of the sunrise off the water, combined with the purple mountains and sporadic clouds was stunning.
All last night and this morning we've been talking about catching breakfast at Denny's this morning. We figured no matter what time we rolled into town we could hit up the 24 hour hot spot. Ken and Andy went with breakfast. Ken got three slices of french toast, while Andy went with what he called "The Big Breffast". His breffast included pancakes, eggs, hash browns, sausage and bacon, it was so big it required two plates. I opted for chicken tenders, as after being up for 5 hours I was ready for some real food.
After breakfast we tried to check into our hotel that our girl Mae hooked us up with once again. Unfortunately for us checking in at 7:45am really isn't an option, and we soon learned that while we finished early, we had nowhere to be. Ken and I had packages at The Post Office so we made the mile long trip to find out the office hours didn't start until 9am. We set up shop by the P.O. boxes and chatted with some locals about our trip. Everyone we've met in Blythe has been very helpful and very supportive of our trip. Eventually the Post Office officially opened. I received a care package from my Aunt Lois and Uncle Scott, and Ken got his last pair of shoes along with some Freihofer's cookies.
After getting our packages we made our way to the library which didn't open until 10. Ken and I took a nap under a tree and Andy sat impatiently at the foot of the door. We eventually got in and checked out the image on our homepage of 7/8 states lit up in yellow. It's hard even for us to comprehend just how far we've come.
After the library we made our way back to The Holiday Inn Express. We have a sweet room, food in walking distance, a hot tub a pool and internet access. This will be the perfect spot to rest up and take a day off before starting the last "Nation Week" of our lives.
See you all soon!
especially Rick and Dan!
-Matt "Night Rider" Durkin
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