I’m going to try not use the word ‘tired’ too much in this blog although it’s been a common theme this last week.

I woke up, well, tired. I knew I would as we’d had such a jam packed day before in Universal Studios Hollywood. But it was worth it for all the fun.

We said our goodbyes to Lyndon and Wendy who’d be wonderful hosts and set off at a sluggish pace. The first day back scooting after a rest day is normally a bit of a shock. My body is stiff and I’m thinking lots of the luxuries I’m missing out on. It wasn’t so bad though. We had a bit of a drab scoot for 20km through residential streets and alongside a not-very-picturesque river until we reached the beach and the views got better.

We followed the coastline all the way to Corona Del Mar, home for the night.

My to-do list had got exceptionally long and I wanted to send out some press packs now we were nearing the end of our scoot. So I had a late night, staying up until gone midnight getting it all done.

Still tired

Our warm showers hosts needed us out of the house before 8am so were up early. It was an easier day in terms of scooting as we had just 30km to cover.

Emily had answered a post I’d put on Facebook and offered a place to crash for that night. We couldn’t get to hers until 4pm though so we had to stretch out our day. We stopped for a long lunch in a restaurant.

With 2 hours still to kill we then found a shady spot in a nice park we passed. I stretched a bit and tried to nap which my body so desperately needed. It wasn’t happening though so instead I watched a bit of Netflix.

It was nice hanging out with Emily and her 3 children in the evening and we all went out for pizza. I also took a shinning to ‘sunshine’ the dog….I think I’ve met more dogs than people on this trip and I’ve loved them all. Even the grumpy ones.

Scooting the highway

It was another early start and I hadn’t slept the best on the sofa (I won’t say the T word!). We had a great sending off from the kids who joined us to scoot out of the complex which cheered me up. With just 3 days left to scoot I’m on count down. I’m done with scooting!

The first part of the day was pleasant as we were on separate bike lanes. I made some calls home and enjoyed catching up with friends and family.

After lunch though we hit the outskirts of a military base. You need special permission to use the pedestrian access in the base so we had no choice but to join the 4 lane motorway to get us to Carlsbad.

The traffic was fast and noisy but at least we had a good sized hard shoulder to put some space between us and the cars. Plus it made us scoot really fast so we finished earlier than we had planned.

Nick came to pick us up mid-afternoon and showed us his home where he was putting us up for a night. We felt instantly relaxed.

Later on he treated us to a really tasty meal at Eve, a vegan restaurant nearby. We loved it so much we ended up returning the next day for lunch as our route took us past there.

I forgot to take a picture at the restaurant. Nick and his wife Caroline cane to meet us later in La Jolla for lunch so I got my pic then 🙂

Our penultimate day

I woke at about 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. When I most need sleep is when I find it the hardest to sleep! Some malfunction in my brain.

Nick dropped us back at the same point he’d picked us up from and we set off. We’ve been ruthless with ensuring we had a continuous line…all the way from Canada.

Was this really our penultimate scoot day? I took in the endless beach views, always keeping my eye out for more dolphins.

10km from La Jolla we reached the base of a huge hill….I could see this was going to be a massive climb. Not fun in the heat of the day! I plugged in my audible book for distraction but my battery died halfway. It took an hour to reach the top but I kept saying to myself – last big climb of the trip.

I was hoping for a big down afterwards but it didn’t happen. It’s now just flat all the way to Tijuana.

We scooted past UCSD university and stopped in a restaurant. I was suddenly ravenous! I ate a bowl of gnocchi and a sandwich which I basically inhaled in 2 mouthfuls. Followed by a chocolate desert with extra cream.

Reaching Mexico

When the alarm went in the morning I felt like a complete zombie. I just couldn’t get excited about our last scoot day because all I could think was that I was ready for it to be over so I could finally sleep!

We said goodbye to Orly and her family who were hosting us for the next couple of nights. I looked forward to enjoying their pool post scoot…they have an amazing house.

We detoured up and over a dirt track on the hills to cut off the 7km we’d need to do if we took the road.

The first half of the day went relatively fast and I did a lot of daydreaming about the months ahead and plans post-scoot.

We scooted through San Diego and I started to look forward to the time with have after exploring the city.

As we neared Tijuana and the Mexican border the area became a little sketchy. We turned a corner and scooted in to scene that didn’t feel good. Some guys were shouting. We put our heads down and scooted on. One of the guys got in his lime green car (classy) and drove up next to us shouting “you better look away” with a few colourful phrases thrown in. My instinct was his gangster act was all bravado but again the whole gun thing in the States makes everything feel much scarier.

We just ignored him, urging the lights to turn green so we could scoot on.

Mexico suddenly appeared on the horizon and we were down to our last 20km. They turned out to be the longest 20km of the entire scoot. I was kicking and kicking but google maps just wasn’t budging!! Will this scoot ever end???

Alas, it did.

We neared the outlet shops that hug the border, scooted through. On the other side there it was – the crossing to Tijuana. Gil and debated going through as we knew that there’d be a long queue getting back. I was hot and tired and it seemed pointless. But I was also hungry and knew the nearest Taco was in Mexico. So we went through the turnstiles and that was that…we had made it to Mexico.

We stopped at the first restaurant we saw ordered a load of food, a tequila shot and a beer.

Then we joined the queue to get back in to the States.

There was no big moment where I felt like I’d done it. In fact, it all felt a bit flat and underwhelming.

I had a sudden urge to shop so we went to the outlets and spent 2 hours buying gifts for all the babies in our lives – our nieces, nephew, god daughter and friends babies. It felt so normal and nice!

As we were leaving a woman approached me and yelled “DROP THE BAG”! It turns out she was undercover and it was actually directed at the shoplifter next to me who threw the clothes down and ran past me. We’ve witnessed a lot drama on this trip!

We hopped on a train to take us back to La Jolla. I updated my social media, climbed in to bed and fell asleep. I couldn’t even be bothered to take a shower.

The after

I want to do a summary on Kicking the States. But I need a bit of time to compose my thoughts! We’ve got some press interviews and fundraising talks still before we go home so I don’t think I’ll consider Kicking the States complete until we get on that plane heading home.

Look out for my blog tomorrow though on what we have lined up next both in the States and when we get back to the UK.

And if you’ve enjoyed reading this blog and following our journey, please consider throwing some pennies towards our fundraising if you haven’t already! It’s not been easy keeping it up along the way but I hoped people would enjoy following and maybe even feel inspired to take on their own adventures. We were doing this scoot to raise money to help build a school in Tanzania and we need your help to reach our 10k goal.

Thank you to all that have supported us. Those who have hosted us and fed us. Donated to our cause. And sent us words or gifts of encouragement. It’s meant the world! And a special thank you also to our sponsors Vivo Life who helped make this adventure possible.