Last night, 79-year-old Ruth Thomas slept in a comfy bed in an air-conditioned room at a Palmyra motel, just inches from the Newport town line.

It was a luxury for the petite great-grandmother of 23. Thomas is in the latter stages of an odyssey that has taken her from the Pacific coast to Maine, visiting the smallest incorporated town in each of the states. Since May, she has visited Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

When she arrives later this week in Beddington, population 45, along Route 9, she’ll have just six states left to go.

And she’s done most of the trip by bicycle.

The retired schoolteacher uses her pension, her Social Security and credit cards to finance her trip, one that has taken her seven years and 11,542 biking miles so far.

“This was a dream I had when I was 18 years old,” she said Thursday at Lovley’s Motel. “But, you know, I got married and raised a family. Then I couldn’t get the kids to move out. Well, finally I sold everything I owned and took off.”

That’s right. She just took off from Spokane, Wash., riding a maroon Diamondback bike and hauling a 125-pound trailer. With no training. Just took off. “I was sorry I didn’t train for at least the first month. It was awful,” she said.

Nearing the completion of her journey of a lifetime, Thomas has replaced nearly every part on her bike. She has gone through six sets of tires and three helmets. She usually goes home to Spokane when she’s physically unable to pedal or hits winter weather.

Along the road, she has slept in barns, churches, on a beauty shop couch, in a fire station in Joe, Mont., alongside a bar in Fighting Creek, Idaho, on a Little League practice field in Caney, Kans., at an old coal mining dump, under bridges, in a pastor’s study and on many, many front lawns.

She has had her bad spells, she’ll tell you. “I’ve been in the hospital in every state of the nation, I think,” she said.

In 2004 she hit a pothole in Clayton, N.J., that sent her sprawling along the pavement. Chronic sore feet sent her back to Spokane in the fall of 2000. In April 2001 she collapsed and needed more rest. Two months later she was taken to a Colorado hospital because of dehydration. In 2003, a viral infection sidelined her.

“I’ve even fallen asleep riding the bicycle,” she said. No purist, Thomas said she has accepted help and rides along the way. “Especially if I am way away from any town,” she said.

In the entire seven years, she has had only three bad experiences: two with harassing men in pickup trucks and once when a flasher decided to visit in Alabama.

On the front handlebars of Thomas’ bike hangs a little girl’s pink and white basket. It contains cookies, Kleenex and pepper spray.

Some days Thomas goes 49 miles. Other days, less. “Once I went 10 blocks, from one side of a city to the other, because of wind,” she said.

She has taken the bike across the Mississippi and over the Great Lakes. She has been to islands, peninsulas, and places so rural that she has gone days without talking to another human.

Most of the time, she said, she is quite aware that local police are “keeping an eye on me, watching out for me.”

And she has found some wonderful helping people along the way. While in western Maine near Farmington earlier this week, Thomas burned her brakes out and had walked her bike and trailer more than 10 miles when a good Samaritan picked her up and drove her to a bike repair shop.

“Lots of people stop to see if I’m OK,” she said. “I have found some amazingly generous people along the way.”

And what does her family think of this journey?

“At first they were pretty concerned, but they’ve learned to live with it,” Thomas said. “People ask my daughter ‘Where is your mom?’ and she answers ‘Who knows?'”

Thomas raised five stepchildren and three adopted children and said they keep in touch by cell phone.

She admits the open road can be lonely. “I spend five to seven hours each day on the road,” she said, “but I’m really outgoing, and I talk to everyone along the way.”

Once she’s done in Maine, she plans to ship her bike and trailer to Texas. She’ll take a bus and continue her quest in the Lone Star State.

When it’s all over, Thomas expects to return to Spokane and write a book about her amazing adventures. She has kept 30 journals along the road.

“And then I’m going to walk the Appalachian Trail,” she said.