All Good Things Must Come To An End

I’m sitting outside for one last sunset in Tucson before leaving for California tomorrow. From one perspective, this trip has been one long series of goodbyes: I said goodbye to home, goodbye to each new place I discovered along the drive across the country, goodbye to Andrew and many of my teammates at the end of camp, and now I am saying goodbye to Tucson.

This place has become home. It’s missing a few critical things – Andrew, my parents, the pets – but something about it has stolen my heart in a way that will never be undone. When I am alone on the side of Mt. Lemmon looking at the vastness of the hills and the desert while the wind blows, I feel the happiest and most alive. It’s not the coffee shops or the great tortillas or the other cyclists; it’s just the desert and the mountains and the way the sky is bigger here than anywhere else. I don’t feel ready to say goodbye.

But with each goodbye has come a new adventure that erases the sorrow of the previous farewell. That’s not to say I’ve forgotten the things left behind; I can hardly look at other dogs because the ache for my own furballs is so acute. I miss the kind lady I met in Canyon, TX and the friend I stayed with in Albuquerque, NM. But if behind me is a trail of wonderful things, then I have to believe that what lies ahead holds the potential to be equally awesome.

So onward. Courteney and I are driving to San Dimas, CA to race this weekend and will stay on to race Redlands after that. Other teammates will fly in to join us and then we will continue our travels together around the country. We’ll race, eat everything everywhere, laugh until I’m glad my chamois is absorbent, and then do it all over again.

But that is tomorrow. For now I have this sunset, this final evening, this glass of wine, and the sweet sorrow of this goodbye. This place has been wonderful.

2015 Le Buzz Group — One final coffee shop ride to Le Buzz.

2015 Courteney's Rebuttal — Courteney thinks she is being clever by texting us a photo of her middle finger. Meanwhile, I’m sitting two feet away.

2015 Safety First — When you can’t be bothered to take anything off on the drive home from a ride.

2015 The Kiwi Breakafst — Every morning, Courteney makes this brown slop for breakfast. It looks like an “after” picture, except that I tried it and now I’m addicted. She made a beautiful bowl of my very own one day and has subsequently made me breakfast every day since.

2015 Recovery Time — This is what happens when the ride is done. We can never get enough chamois time.

2015 Court and the Cat — Courteney was very nervous about this black cat, so I made her go stand next to it. She kept talking about how it was eating “biscuits”, which apparently is New Zealand for cat food.

2015 Tucson Tattoo — I got another tattoo. The artist looked a lot like my father, except with a lot of tattoos and some big gold earrings. I started up some small talk by asking, “How long have you been doing this?” Without missing a beat or even looking up from my arm, he gruffly replied, “A couple of weeks.” The real answer was 1984.

2015 Afternoon in AZ — Another perfect afternoon in Tucson. Courteney kept heaving heavy sighs and moaning “I’M BORED.” This is because she is a teenager. I can’t get enough of having nothing to do. This is because I am old.

The Dirt Field

There are hardly words.