Day 59 - The Final Familiar Frontier

Donny and I had about 80 miles to travel to our front door on my 59th (and his third – go Donny!) and final day of the journey. My level of excitement and anticipation of having my house and pillows and the cat and laptop and friends and spinach anytime I wanted and Trader Joe’s and running instead of cycling and maybe wearing a different t-shirt and clean socks and not having to smear Asso chamois sludge in the nether regions and imprison my dick and balls in a locked and padded room for many hours daily had exponentially increased in the last 24 hours. I was overly ready to see the familiar coast I’d ridden so many times over the years from north of Malibu to Santa Monica and then on my usual commuter route from the beach (a few blocks from where I work at Common Ground) to La Jolla Avenue. I imagined myself pedaling up the bike lane on Santa Monica Boulevard with a big yellow “DC to LA” banner, yee-hawing to drivers at stoplights and the few pedestrians on the LA streets, beating my chest like I was a dope-free Lance Armstrong winning the freaking Tour. This fantasy, which admittedly I’d indulged in a few times before the Ultimate Day, sometimes included a modest marching band and always ended with my rolling ecstatically on our front lawn, me a dog wanting to smell like something that stinks so good it’s a piece of heaven served up on grass.

Savoring the last moments of my feat, however, would be more internally sensational, I knew, (until I verbalized them on the blog) than flag-waving and drumbeats and Olympian torch-bearing. And, according to Donny, Kelly and Nina would be there to welcome me, which would mark the occasion more than well enough. And maybe Mary Ann and David would stick around as they had been Dinah-sitting for the three nights that Donny had been away. I had also contemplated the possibility of stopping at Common Ground to say hello to my cohorts there – since it was on the way – but dismissed the idea in favor of a quicker reunion with my pillows. I really just wanted to be home.

But I still had 80 miles to go, and anything can happen with the Mancini Curse nipping at the heels of our bike cleats. The Cliff House Inn included breakfast which, to my chagrin, didn’t open until 7:30AM. Hmph. I had been hoping to leave by then so we could experience the return to LA without rush hour traffic. We weren’t the only bumrushers ready to eat that morning, hanging around the continental breakfast table before the food was ready for consumption. An ancient father with his child-bride and their fairy-child offspring were also trying to stay out of the way/getting in the way of the hotel workers. This family gave me a whiff of LA, or Brentwood more specifically, with their overly public attention-seeking parenting style (yes, your 4 year old child is brilliant for knowing the object in question is, in fact, a hard-boiled egg,). I imagined the nearing-30 progeny from the tanned and bottle-blonded dad’s first marriage plotting their young stepmother’s untimely death.

I ate twice as much as Donny for the second morning in a row and pilfered a waxy granny smith and still-too-green banana for later. The banana would be fine. Forget the paper bag in the pantry method; nothing ripens a banana faster than squashing it into my behind-the-saddle bag. I would try make Donny eat it later. I checked out of the hotel and waited for Donny to meet me outside. The morning was the usual less than 60 degrees and beach-style gloom but promised to be warm by the time we got home. Dashie says 78 in Los Angeles, but Los Angeles is vast and Dashie is a liar.

Brave Donny got right back into the saddle after his mishap of yesterday. It was still reasonably early at 8:15 and there wasn’t a ton of traffic on the highway. After 5 miles we came to Dulah. Not much of a town. Just a few houses sprinkled near the beach. From there, we rode partly on Highway 1 and partly on bike paths through several state beaches – Emma Wood, whoever she is, San Buena Ventura, and McGrath State Park. These beaches are very much like the ones I was familiar with near Malibu, Leo Carrillo and the like: plenty of seaweed and rock to go with the sand and surfers, in various stages of wetsuit dress/undress parked along the gravel at the side of the road. As we neared the cities of Oxnard and Ventura, the route brought us onto a seaside boardwalk where we had to avoid mowing down runners, walkers and the ever-irksome, anachronistic roller-bladers. Why is it that roller-bladers are always extra-extra-clueless, hands clasped behind their backs, gliding inches from your front wheel, bopping to the beat of a clue-sucking drummer? After the bike path, we move to the flat swamplands between Ventura and Oxnard which boast vistas of recession-challenged construction projects, concrete mixed with tall grasses, a mini-airport, the county sanitation department (yes, including the dump) and general deadness. We stopped to piss on it.

A few miles later we’re riding through the city of Port Hueneme and headed crosswise through the peninsula. Nothing much to report here. Like Lompoc, this place is military – maybe a little cushier (Navy vs. Air Force?). Everything is a mini-mall. The best part of this stretch is coming up with various ways to pronounce Port Huminah-huminah-huminah. We turn toward the ocean and into the wind for the last time toward Port Hugh-Enemy’s brother base, Pt. Mugu. A giant black cargo plane, loud as megafuck, practically shaves our helmets down and liquidates our eardrums, as it tears overhead and lands in the airfield along side of appropriately named Navalair Rd. Very unsettling. At the Pt. Mugu Naval Base we finally get back onto Highway 1 proper, which, I believe it is now safe to call Pacific Coast Highway. Which is how I know it, intimately.

Every moment feels like a 99.9% milestone now, and within about 42 miles, when we hit Leo Carrillo State Beach and the Los Angeles County line, nothing will be new but I will be seeing it all with the sore eyes of a traveler headed home. Leo Carrillo is where Son of Semele had our annual retreat less than a year ago during which a bunch of theater geeks gathered to do yoga on the beach and debate the future of the company. I had biked from work the 30 or so miles that long ago Friday but I had dumped my gear off at Sarah’s to carry for me. If we go to the same place this year, I will bring my own stuff. Funny that less than a year ago that seemed beyond inconvenient (and wasn’t possible based on the gear I owned).

Donny and I stopped for the requisite overly backlit pictures at the LA County line. I hug the signpost trying to avoid getting tetanus from the rust-crusted staples poking out of the splintery wood. 99.99% there. Truthfully, I feel less excited about the County line than other milestones; actually the angst of returning to work fills my throat. To me, “Los Angeles County” is not just a place; it’s also a meddlesome bureaucracy that provides a considerable amount of Common Ground’s funding. Government dollars mean red tape equivalent to the square mileage of our vast County and drones to monitor the length, quality, function, and general adhesiveness of that tape as well as to ensure that the tape is very, very red. This I have not missed. But I have days before I return to work and have to deal with that aspect of LA County. The angst dissipates as the tailwinds pick up and assist us (slightly!) up and down the hills at the beaches of north Los Angeles County. Zuma Beach comes and goes. As we go further, the beaches become more populated and the surfers seem to welcome me. My joy is tempered by the fear of being bashed by a swinging car door along PCH. We are in Malibu (one municipality away from home) making amazing time. In 30 miles I’ll be home and it will still be mid-afternoon.

I’m running on anticipation and don’t really desire lunch but Donny wants to stop. Of course I oblige. I can certainly eat something besides the bruised banana and apple, cashews, Clif bar, or whatever’s still shoved in Whitey’s orifices. There’s a Subway in a strip mall near Malibu Colony with the unappetizingly named “Coogie’s” Restaurant. It’s lunchtime and busy. I hold a table while Donny goes to get sandwiches. I eat my turkey sub in like two minutes. Donny is munching his more slowly and I’m getting impatient. Instead of hopping to, he then elects to visit Starbuck’s for caffeine and an emergency poo. Come on! I wait with the bikes for what seems like ages, and Yellow Jacket ambles back, heel, heel, clomping on his cleats, slurping on a venti frap no whip. My impatience is beaten back for a moment at the sight of his manly cuteness and his offer of a sip or two, but lurches forward again at his persistent lollygagging. Come on already!

We’re finally off again, and after one or two more steep hills, it is the smoothest of sailing, soft wind at our backs, sun finally out. It’s all beyond gravy now as long as we can avoid being struck by the endless stream of car doors being flung open by gawking tourists and local surfers alike. I’ve been Rushy Rutherford all day but the sight of the City Limits of Los Angeles fills me with emotion. Really, truly, I have arrived. If I get killed between now and the front door, there won’t be any exaggeration if someone at my memorial says I rode my bike from Washington, DC to Los Angeles, California. We take our time here at the City of LA sign. Donny is a better photographer than me. And I am a better subject now than ever; the champion poses look bona fide because it’s not just a pose. I actually believe.

While still at the sign, Donny suggests calling Jinx to announce our arrival in LA. Which I do without hesitation since she has been such an inspiration to me. And I can’t call Jinx without calling my own sister, so Natalie gets a call too. By this time, I’m ready to continue on – we do have about 15 miles yet – but Donny says we have to call Denise, another of several more Mancini sisters, so she won’t feel left out. I leave Denise a message. More? He now thinks I should call our mothers and perhaps my father. No! I’ll call them later, when I’m actually home wearing clean clothes, rather than the sweat-choked lycra outfit I’ve been suited up in for several days. And no more pictures. Let’s go! It’s 2:30 or so and the traffic heading east from the beach will worsen with every second.

As the trip-o-meter clicks 99.999% completion, we enter Santa Monica and after a few more miles where I recognize every centimeter of scenery, ever-so-carefully make our way into the left-turning lane to cycle up the steep-ish (but thankfully short) California Incline and cross Ocean Avenue and Palisades Park. “I got hit back there!” shouts Donny. “What?” I ask. “Are you ok? What do you mean ‘hit’?” Not really hit hit, it is explained to me, but he did bash his shoulder on the side view mirror of an SUV while waiting to turn left up the incline. He says he’s fine, but as we make our way south a few more blocks to Wilshire and then Santa Monica Boulevard, he needs to stop and “stretch” it. “Donny, you don’t stretch something that’s bruised,” I snappily explain looking for evidence of his wound. Secretly, I plan to involve Kelly, who is a nurse and will be seeing us in a matter of a couple hours, about this mistreatment of his hardly visible injury. I know Kelly would say stretching is a stupid idea, or at least misguided. But Donny is on the sidewalk stretching away leaning against a parking meter.

All these madcap interruptions to the final miles of unfettered glory – Subway, Starbucks and pooing, extensive photo shoots and phone calls to every family member he can think of, and now this minor injury – should be comical (and, looking back, they are) but in the moment I was IMPATIENT. Clearly the injury was not mortal, so let’s just ice it in a few minutes WHEN WE’RE HOME PLEASE.

We’re finally on the way again, still on Santa Monica Blvd. We pass the 405 and are now on the actual bike lane I use to commute to work. Less than five miles to go. After Westwood Blvd., there’s a slight incline which seems super-easy now in comparison to the last time I rode it. In Century City, some kids on bikes on the sidewalk try to race us, but they are not beating us. No way, no how. Beverly Hills now and Burton Way, slowly coasting down. Donny says: “I thought we were going down Beverly?” “No, let’s go on Third.” “Too busy,” he says. That’s true – there are a ton of restaurants and shops on Third and the valet parkers tend to make things a bit calamitous on a bike. “Ok, then, how about 1st St?” Donny pauses slightly and says, ridiculously, “I hate 1st St.”

Okay, now I get it. We need to go down Beverly, because we need to get onto La Jolla, our street, from that direction, because it’s not just Kelly and Nina that will be waiting for us. We needed to stop for lunch and get coffee and poo and take pictures and make incessant phone calls and get injured and stupidly stretch the injury and not take 3rd or 1st Streets, because something in addition to Kelly and Nina and maybe Mary Ann and David being around to welcome us will be happening at our house, something which needed to be stalled because we were making such good time. My partner's talent as an actor has been unearthed and played to the heavens.

So, without further questioning or interference, I get onto Beverly and head east for the last half-mile with Donny behind me. Both of us are quiet. The trip is ending now, as I turn right onto our street and as we spin the final two blocks I am starting to see a bunch of people hurrying to get into place in front of our house. Sweat is in my eyes and I’m tearing up at the sight of Robert and someone else (can’t remember who now – Warren?) holding a finish line across and I think “Fuck, what if I can’t break through?” The streamer/finish line stretches, thankfully breaks. My friends cheer and Gattas throws a giant fistful of biodegradable confetti in my face. I inhale a few pieces. Gattas blesses me and sticks a light blue scrap of confetti onto my forehead like a bindi which I wear until it falls off.

About 20 or so folks are there to meet me. (Thanks Nina, Kelly, Val, pregnant Mara, very pregnant Lisa, Gattas, Debbie, Kristin and Erin, David and Liz, Corey, SheilaMaryAnnRobertDavidbutnoTed, Claire and Warren, Barry, Mike and Brian and Mike, Eleanor and Tessa, Tiffany, Jeff, Michelle) I’m shocked and a little overwhelmed, almost shy. Donny has amazingly (and generously) pulled this off via emails to let people know of the early arrival, engaging Nina’s help to get here early and be in charge. People demand to see my abs. Donny admits a fiendish fantasy to beat me to the finish line and break through it first, which would have been funny and out of character. He has ordered an amazing cake from Sweet Lady Jane complete with “Danny Rocks!” and a map of the US, the Capitol Building representing my starting point and an orange the end. There's also a cyclist pictured on there; it weirdly looks like me but it turns out it's a rip-off of a Lance Armstrong image, with an added smirk. I take a shower and change before cutting into it. The first cut is a release of tension between dualities: one the omnipotent center of the universe and the other a tiny, vulnerable visitor.

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July 9, 2010. It's the one-year anniversary of the end of my journey and I'm finally posting this installment, maybe not the last. Hopefully it's not too late to thank you for your support. All the facebook posts and comments were extremely motivating (except for those telling me to slow down!) and came from people from the entire landscape of my life. My sister Natalie and brother-in-law Larry (and Allison my niece) deserve huge Friendly's sundaes of gratitude - for their efforts to help me prepare in the days leading up to the start and for posting pictures along the way. And Kristin for being my training and text support, making sure i was eating and stretching, and for being interested in all the fitness-related dirt and stats. And Nina for co-piloting the trips to REI and for revitalizing my interest in human contact while we were together in Utah. And my parents and grandparents for being proud anyway, even though they thought i was crazy. And most of all, as always, to Donny for changing his perspective about this whole thing and letting go a little even though it was painful and scary for both of us. That's it for now.