3036 Miles

(I apologize for the profusion of destination points; God forbid one travel a route that follows mainly backroads yet does cover a few stretches of interstate and expressway as well. Just don't get the impression I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia.)

• TX-LA
• LA-KY
• KY1*
• KY2*
• KY-OH
• OH-MD
• MD-DE
• DE-NJ
• NJ-MA
• MA1
• MA-NH
• NH-ME
• ME1
• ME2
• ME-MA
• MA2

*Hitchhiked; not included in total mileage.

As fate would have it, the tri-millenium was clinched on the very last day, right about here. This wasn't at all part of my original plan, as I'd intended to bus home from Bangor, but at the last minute decided to ride back to Massachusetts and retrieve the cache of superfluous belongings I'd abandoned a week earlier. (I'd since bought a new, much sturdier rack.) Unfortunately on final approach I missed the spot completely, and by the time I realized it, only a few miles beyond, I was too tired to give a fuck. Instead I just continued on to Westfield, where at last I solemnly surrendered my bicycle to UPS. When it turned out there was no local Greyhound service, I called a friend who kindly picked me up and deposited me at the terminal in Springfield. She was clearly a bit confused as to why I'd bothered doubling back all that distance, but of course so was I. It was indeed a rather bizarre, unceremonious ending.

Now, however, I see the true purpose of that mission.

Correction

(Yes, already.)

Ok, turns out, after all that pedalling, I did not in fact make it to the easternmost tip of the USA, nor, perhaps, anywhere close.

Absurd as it may seem, according to the U.S. Geological Survey the formal designation belongs to Pochnoi Point on Semisopochnoi, one of the outer Aleutian Islands of Alaska, which at 179°46' east longitude is indeed considered to lie 246 degrees east of West Quoddy Head (66°57'W), not 114 degrees west. By the same criterion, the western extremity of the USA is located not on Peaked Island, the outermost of the Aleutians, but rather on Amatignak, a mere 60 miles to the southeast of Semisopochnoi just opposite the 180th meridian.

(Those limey bastards in Greenwich are of course spared any such headscratching.)

Even by the more intuitive standard of position relative to the geographic center of the nation (44°59'N, 103°38'W; near Castle Rock, SD), Sail Rock, a tiny pinnacle just a few hundred yards off Quoddy, is the true eastermost landform, as it does rise slightly above the high tide mark. Naturally this presents a far more bitter pill—to have come practically within pissing distance only to turn back without tagging the damn thing. I mean, granted I'm not much of a swimmer, again we're only talking a few hundred yards. Surely a quick lap through the "swift", "icy" current in the Bay of Fundy wouldn't have killed me.

(God I feel robbed.)