A crowd of crazed paparazzi gathered at the Southwest Airlines end of RDU's Terminal 1 early Friday evening awaiting the arrival of celebrities who were just in from the "left coast."

No, not Taylor Swift or Brangelina. Those fans at RDU were awaiting the return of Cycle 20Ten -- the band of local teens who trekked this summer across the United States' northern tier.

Carrying banners, pointing cameras, wearing smiles, welling up with pride, and shouting for joy, the crowd of parents, siblings and well-wishers rivaled any group gathered behind the velvet ropes of Hollywood.

But, unlike the practiced politicians of Tinseltown at premier microphones, these reluctant heroes found it hard to summarize their summer blockbuster upon their return home. Most likely, that was because this success story wasn't fiction. It was real; it was personal, and it was life-changing.

"Going through all of this with everybody was cool," said Aidan Kelley, minutes after deplaning. "But it's hard to think back on it all right now. Everything's kind of blurred."

"I honestly couldn't even tell you what time it is," said David Hare, who had made a similar journey with trip leader Brian Burnham just a few years ago.

By the numbers

Thirteen teenagers, all members of Boys Scouts Troop 845, many as young as 15 years old, embarked on the 10-week mission by bicycle on June 12, officially departing the eastern seaboard from Aberdeen, Md. Nearly 3,700 miles and 66 days later, the entire contingent arrived at their destination, Rosario Strait, a Pacific Ocean inlet in Washington Park near Anacortes, Wash.

Led by guides Burnham and Hare, the riders included Zach Jansen, Miles Rosen, Matson Conrad, Mike Ruston, Aidan Kelley, Ty Fenton, Rourke Bauers, Jonah Keyserling, Mark Flournoy, Brian Stanton, Alex Johnson, Sam Ward, and Charles LePrevost.

No stranger to adventure (from hikes on the Appalachian and John Muir Trails to a Kilimanjaro climb), Burnham lives in Chapel Hill and owns the multimedia firm, Cirque Productions. He had already made three cross-country bicycle trips, but this was the largest group he'd led.

Unseen

Photos and blogs were posted throughout the journey at www.cycle20ten.com/, but some of the parents at RDU this past Friday had not seen their children for months.

"When I did research, all the other groups trying to do something like this had support vehicles," said Julia Bauers, the mother of rider Rourke Bauers. "But one of the boys, Mike Rustin, had been given a GPS by his parents, and we could track them like we never imagined. Every 10 minutes it ticked off exactly where the cyclists were."

On the last day, the riders rolled through the strait, dipped their toes and front bike wheels in the Pacific Ocean, and everybody hugged.

The trip was about more than bikes and bonding, however. The team of riders -- students from Chapel Hill High School, East Chapel Hill and Carrboro high schools -- was cycling to raise funds for cancer research at UNC Lineberger.

"We're just so excited to have them back and just so much in awe of what they've done and this journey they've taken for us," said Dianne Shaw, Deputy CommunicationsDirector for the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. She added that it was likely the youngsters would now and forever be intimately aligned with the fight against cancer.

"They just ran into so many (cancer) patients and family members along the way, and that reinforced (the cause) for everybody."

Viewpoints

Trying to get perspective on the trip, cyclists talked about great challenges and great joys in the same breath, as if they were one in the same.

"The first set of mountains in Pennsylvania were the toughest," Hare said. "It was a group of 16 who hadn't really biked together before, all getting their bikes and bodies ready and mentally understanding what it would be like."

"Some of the (meth-amphetamine-ravaged) towns out west were scary. You really had to watch yourself a little bit more," Burnham said, "but the cops were generally out in full force, and you were fine as long as you didn't stay outside. For example ... a church provided us a place to stay."

"Once, three of the boys got stuck in a storm," Gill Hare said, "but they were sort of rescued by a lady who was actually a breast cancer survivor, and that was very neat for them."

If anyone began the trip with a cynical attitude on American culture, it was altered by trip's end.

"People would just come up and give us money along the road," Kelley noted. "They'd say, 'I know how hard you're working on this, just go buy yourselves some food, because I know you need it.' Everyone was just so supportive of us. They were behind us the whole time."

The toughest part

It seemed, for every hard climb, there was a long glide; for every headwind, a tailwind; and for every tough stretch, around the corner: another unexpected slice of grandeur, especially in the uncharted territories out west, where time itself seemed to move differently.

"That's a problem too, though," Burnham said, "because you're further north, and when it gets dark, you look at your watch, and it's like 10:30 p.m. Then you realize, 'We've got to get up in like six hours and bike 70 miles tomorrow.'"

The toughest part of the trip, however, may have been the end at Rosario Strait.

"It was incredible, but it wasn't what we expected," Kelley said. "You try to sum up everything that we accomplished ... and it was difficult. We'd been working all summer on this, and then all of a sudden, we were just there."

"It was sort of bittersweet," rider Jonah Keyserling said. "We wanted to get home and see our families, but, also, for most of us, we have to go right back to school this week."

Zach Jansen agreed: "Yeah, it's going to be tough. It's going to seem boring at first -- everyday life."

Most admitted they needed a rest before even considering such a journey again.

"Give me a day or two," Burnham said, laughing.

"Not right now," Keyserling said. "Maybe in three or four years."

But whatever challenges these athletes may someday encounter, perhaps they will now understand better how to face life's hurdles, from minor bumps in the road to impediments that loom like mountains in their path.

"There were times when some of the guys were struggling, but even for the guys that struggled, by then end of it, they just loved it," Kelley said. "I think everyone agreed that this was the greatest thing any of us had ever done."