Day 54: Farewell to the Tour!!!

The alarm went off at 8 a.m. and Mark quickly suited up in his padded shorts, jersey, gloves, sunglasses and helmet. I readied the camera and water and penned the last set of directions that would guide Mark the 30 miles from Ellsworth to Bar Harbor. I grabbed my cup of coffee and stole a quick kiss from my husband before he took off for the last time and I cautioned him to be careful of the heavy traffic. The temperature rose into the 90's as I waited 45 minutes and then went after him. Highway 3 was littered with cars that, I'm guessing, were filled with tourists looking forward to a big day of shopping, whale watching and eating seafood.
I spotted Mark, who had already made it 17 miles down the road, so I gave him a hoot and yelled, "Woohoo!!!" while pumping my fist. I located the ending destination in Bar Harbor, but due to the crazy crowds, I had to park a 1/2 mile down the street. Grabbing the camera, I ran down to Main Street and positioned myself at the finish line. I "people-watched" for the next 15 minutes until I saw him. Dressed in red and riding his red, Giant OCR 1 bicycle, he was impossible to miss. I snapped pictures and we both smiled proudly, as he pedaled down the pier to dip his front tire into the bay as a kind of ceremonial ending to this beautiful tour that began 4,300 miles west of here on the other side of this blessed country. Surprisingly, we weren't sad that it was over. It felt like it was time.
These last two months have been such a wonderful blessing that it's hard to describe in a few short closing words. Experiencing all of this together is something that we will always treasure and carry with us throughout our marriage.
Not everything went exactly according to our original plans due to things that were simply out of our control. When we got on that train a little over four weeks ago in North Dakota, it was tempting to think that we had failed. But thankfully, we are loved by our Lord Jesus. "Well what does that have to do with anything?" You may find yourself asking. It has to do with EVERYTHING because our success isn't measured by numbers or miles or any other human standard. Rather, our success is measured by our obedience through faith to our Heavenly Father. Mark and I have both come out of this experience with the ability to say that we followed His voice as best as we can hear. Although we are certainly far from being perfect children, the Lord has been gracious in giving us both His peace and love in all of the decisions we've had to make in regards to this trip and our hearts can rest in His assurance. That is a lesson that we've learned during this adventure that we hope to take with us for the rest of our lives.
We're so thankful to Steve Peifer and his family for their ministry to the students of Kenya and for allowing us the blessing of helping Kenya Kids Can in some small way. We look forward to the day when we'll get to visit Kenya ourselves and witness this miracle of feeding 25,000 students with our own eyes!
We're also so thankful (in an indescribable way) to Tim and Jan Butorac and all of our friends at RTC that have allowed Mark to be absent from work for so long. We look forward to rejoining all of you on September 20th!
Where are we going from here? Well, we have a few more stops to make before returning to Rochester, MN. Right now we are headed to Kentucky to see my family. My younger brother is in the U.S. Air Force and is in Kentucky for a short time. We're not sure when we'll get to see him again, so we're taking this opportunity! From Kentucky, we will go to North Carolina where Mark's childhood best friend is getting married on September 18th. They haven't seen each other since our own wedding two years ago, so this is very exciting for them.

Thank you all for reading and following along with us for these two months. Thank you for your donations to us and to Kenya Kids Can. Thank you for your encouragement and support and for following us along our journey. This will be the last blog, but it's been the most fun getting to write and report our day-to-day touring. It's made us feel connected to you and has reminded us that we weren't just doing this trip for ourselves, but for dreamers everywhere! If you have a dream, even as silly as riding a bike across America, you can do it for real!!!