It took her 439 days to kayak and bike around U.S.

Renata Chlumska paddled into Moss Bay to a hero's welcome Friday -- friends draped in flags of her native Sweden, others waving miniflags, holding signs, clapping loudly, holding champagne bottles waiting to be popped.

After 439 days circumnavigating the continental United States -- thought to be the first time this was accomplished -- kayaking through ocean swells, biking through desert conditions, witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Chlumska was overjoyed to have reached her journey's end.


		Scott Eklund / P-I
	Renata Chlumska gets a hug from a supporter as she passes the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard on her way to Lake Union. Her return to Seattle on Friday marked the end of a one-of-a-kind circumnavigation of the continental U.s. The 11,000-mile trip through 30 states by kayak and bicycle began July 4, 2005.

Docking at Lake Union a little after 2 p.m., Chlumska was at once relieved and happy to have completed the 11,000-mile trek that took her through 30 states in fewer than the 480 days she had planned.

"I'm just overwhelmed," Chlumska said. "I was shaking this morning. I'm still trembling. But it's a great feeling. It's worth it. If it was easy, it wouldn't be the same thing."

Chlumska, 32, left Lake Union on July 4, 2005. Her journey, which she updated regularly on her Web site, was split into four legs.

On the first leg, she kayaked down the Pacific coast to San Diego. That was followed by a biking expedition to Brownsville, Texas. Then she kayaked around the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic coast to Eastport, Maine. From there, she biked and kayaked her way back to Seattle.

"There have been days I felt really tired," Chlumska said. "But there haven't been days I wanted to give up. I knew those moments of weakness, I would regret. You just have find a way to work yourself through it."

Chlumska said she also learned a lot about the United States.

She had been to the country before, but never for this long and this immersed. The people she met, the random strangers who were always willing to help, took her aback. She loved the scenery, especially the unexpected beauty of the Rio Grande. And she was shocked at the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina, as she arrived in the Gulf Coast region nearly four months after the storm.

The trip was physically and mentally taxing.

This is a woman who climbed Mount Everest, biked from Nepal to Sweden and rode a motorcycle from India to Sweden. But this trip, originally planned as a two-person expedition with her late fiance Goran Kropp, who died in a climbing accident in Eastern Washington in 2002, was difficult because of its solitude, as well a its scope.

Aside from her boyfriend biking the second leg with her and meeting up with her parents in the Great Lakes, the trip was undertaken almost entirely alone.

"It's definitely a closure for me," Chlumska said. "It's like one chapter has been closed and I'm starting a new one."

She said she does not know what's next for her. She will be in Seattle through the end of the month, staying with friends and relaxing. Then it's back to her hometown of Jonkoping, Sweden, where she'll decide her future plans.

Her immediate goal, however, was much more tangible.

"I really want a shower."