Arrived!!! (San Diego, CA)

Our entire team has made it safely to the west coast, as I hope you've been reading in everyone else's journals! San Diego is a beautiful city with mild weather and gorgeous beaches. Standing with my bike in the Pacific Ocean with all my friends splashing around me gave me an unbelievable sense of fulfillment. The past two months have made up an incredible journey with some of the best teammates I could possibly ask for. To all you NC2SD'ers out there, thanks for making this journey what it was. Best wishes for everything to come.

I cannot say thank you enough to all the families, friends, hosts, and perfect strangers who have supported us in this journey. Thanks especially to B&B alumnus Todd and his girlfriend Amanda, who helped us out so much in San Diego and hosted a party for us, and to Brendan who arranged our cookout on the beach and everything important for our arrival.

The 30 members of our team collectively raised over $130,000 to make this trip happen, more than half of which is being donated to affordable housing groups that involve young adults, including UNC/Chapel of the Cross Habitat, NCSU Habitat, Arizona State Habitat, The Fuller Center, and Durango CO, as well as nonprofits selected by our various host sites.

As for myself, I'm back at home in Raleigh, NC for two more days before heading off to Tottori City, Japan, where I'll be teaching English to middle schoolers for a year through the JET Program. I'm not sure yet if I'll keep a blog from Japan, but I'll at least be posting pictures online. I'll post a link to my Japan site on this blog in a couple of weeks when I set that up.

TOTAL miles traveled: 3479!!










Playing a good-bye game that involved tossing a ball of yarn around a circle and recalling memories (my perspective along the string that connected me to Anita)










Anita's perspective along the string that connected her to me










Our first street sign for San Diego! (Anita, Liz, Ryan, Chris C, Jochem)

I had a little fall and my camera broke, so I've stolen the rest of these pictures from Anita (thanks!!):










San Diego city limits!! (Ryan, Jochem, Chris C, me, Liz, Andrew)










Our first view of the Pacific! (Jochem is pumped!)













!!!!!! (Me)










Running into the water (Anita, Chris C et al)










Collapsing into the waves










Group moment. We all started singing John Denver's "Country Roads," which has become sort of a theme song for the trip, at the top of our lungs. Got just a few weird stares from the hundreds of tourists on the beach around us.










Brendan addressing the group at the cookout