New Year's Eve was awash with emotion, yet much time was necessarily spent getting clothes ready for the Tournament of Roses Parade (we had a specific uniform to wear) and getting everything ready for flights home. I got a full 30 minutes of sleep before getting up when it was still dark and cold outside. Breakfast was 4am-5am. The shuttle buses were scheduled to leave at 5:15am. When we got to the Rose Bowl parking lot, it was still a long time before it would be light and an even longer time before it would be warm.

A few of the riders and Tim were interviewed live at 6:30am as part of KTLA's local pre-parade coverage. That turned out to be the only tv coverage we got. In spite of being in the official parade program (including my picture) and even after being mentioned in TV Guide - "and the return of the Odyssey 2000 cyclists from their yearlong around-the-world ride, which began last New Year's Day" - the major networks snubbed us again. Last year people asked, jokingly, if I really was in the parade. This year I have proof. My picture (wearing a you-gotta-earn-it finisher's jersey and one of my brother's homemade mirrors) is in the Pasadena Star-News.

Because the L.A. weather was like way better than last year, the parade route was like way more crowded with spectators. Near the end of the route, where there was like only a smattering of people last year, fans were like already five deep to see me although the main part of the parade was like way behind the last of the 83 Odyssey rider. Groovy!

After the parade, most riders put their bikes in the gear truck and rode the shuttle buses back to the hotel. I pedaled alone those 20 miles for the last mileage as part of Odyssey. I swung by the parade route in time to see the first two floats and the Grand Marshall, Tom Brokow. I didn't have the desire to sit through a couple of hours since I planned to see the floats up close at Fanfest the next day.

The day before, the last riding day, one rider said she had been blubbering for miles thinking about Odyssey's ending. I was always still in the moment, trying to figure out what was next on the route/schedule. It wasn't until after the parade; after I had showered, changed, packed and checked out of the hotel; and was waiting for Marti's brother Tom, with hom I would be staying, to pick me up that I lost it. That's when I had to say goodbye to my buddy Cheryl. While I knew intellectually that there would be many people I would never see again, it hadn't hit me emotionally that there would be individuals who played crucial roles over the past year that I might never see ever again. With Odyssey's end I knew I'd soon be seeing people I hadn't seen for a long time. There are staff members and riders I know I'll see in the future, others who I'll miss, but it's not the same with individuals like Cheryl. She was the staff member with whom I saw Rome, New York, Paris, London, Copenhagen and Prague. If I saw any other city, I saw it by myself. My shyness also found me, for most of the year, eating dinners alone unless Cheryl sat down with me. I likely spent more hours talking with Cheryl than everybody else combined. She's my friend and I miss her.