The End

And so it is that I am back home, away from the salt, sand, and sea, and back where my car sits in the driveway, my towel hangs on the bathroom door, and my doggy sits in her bed staring at me like some stranger she might have known in a past life, aka a week ago.
  I had packed most of my stuff last night in the hopes of actually getting my butt out of bed to
1. watch the sunrise with my brother and
2. get in a 90 minute bike ride
    I had strange dreams all night of not waking up in time to wake the Bro up so we could both catch a glimpse of dawn peaking up over the Atlantic Ocean, but thankfully, I managed to snap awake at the sound of my extremely annoying and repetitive cell phone alarm. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy on the horizon, preventing us from seeing the full spectacle of the big star in the sky rising to greet us. I was quite grumpy, since I had been tossing and turning all night and at that point had about 4 hours of rest in me, so I peaced out and went back to the couch to catch what little z's I could before my 6:45 wake-up call. Before hitting the sheets, however, the bro did call me over to see a lovely rose-colored ball of light rising up through the pale blue clouds. It was absolutely spectacular.
   The bike ride was pretty awesome, too. Not too hot, just enough sun, PLENTY of breeze. In fact, so much breeze that doing an out and back sort of made me want to punch Mother Nature in the face. Doing speed intervals into the wind? Not quite my cup of tea. I am hoping my legs don't burn quite like they have all of this week, but after 25 miles of hard riding, I have an inkling I am going to be experiencing some residual butt and quad soreness tomorrow morning.