Our memories are still running at full throttle, we had so many great
experiences in North America it is impossible to get it all summarised
in a few lines.



We rode our bicycles from Montreal to New York, caught a bus from
there to Washington DC, then rode to Charlottesville VA by way of
Harper's Ferry and the Blueridge Skyway, from Charlottesville we
caught a train to Birmingham, Alabama then rode from there to New
Orleans, with the exception of 4 occasions when we were offered a ride
in pickup trucks over 30 or 40 miles of dicey roads.
East Dixsville, Portland, Boston, Cape Cod, Plymouth, Mystic Seaport,
Port Jefferson, Hoboken, Manhatten, Washington, Charlottesville,
Birmingham, Beatrice, Orange Beach, Dauphin Island, Gautier, Biloxi,
Bay St Louis, New Orleans and Santa Monica are places we will remember
for a long time to come - the last mentioned because it was here I had
the only mishap of the trip - hit by a car coming out of a driveway,
no serious damage, but I did the tour of the Getty Museum sitting in a
wheel chair, propelled by Val! - the others for the people we met
there and the things we experienced. The train trip from New Orleans
to Los Angeles was a great way to finish our ride, the food was good,
the sleeping car very comfortable and  the observation car, by far the
best way to see the hard desert country of the South,

Every day we set out saying goodbye to new friends, warmed by the
hospitality of people who hardly batted an eyelid when we stopped our
bikes and asked if there was somewhere we could camp for the night, if
we had dropped in from the sky it could not have been much different,
but in the whole three months there were very few times when we did
not find a camp and a new experience with our next lot of friends.

We experienced the election campaign from the side of the road,
candidates sign boards were almost a hazard at times, the talk on our
small radio was mostly aimed at what the President had not done, or
had done that did not meet the approval of the "tea party". Some
people we met were proudly displaying "kitchen cabinet" fridge badges,
others were wishing for "less government".

Everywhere was feeling the effects of a hot dry summer, our first
"Warm Showers" host in Maine, was unable to offer us a shower owing to
the shortage of water, they depended on rainwater for their needs. We
talked with people who had lost close friends in the 9/11 attacks, one
had witnessed the second plane crashing into the side of a tower,
later on the effects of Hurricane Katrina were very much evident and
still fresh in the minds of people who had lived through it.

In Alabama, the importance of hunting to the people, and the economy I
suspect, became very evident and we, for the first time, became aware
of the gun culture. One casual meeting outside a rural post office led
to a person expressing amazement that we were travelling on our bikes,
camping along the way, and we did not have a gun, another suggested
that should we approach a house in the night, that it would be prudent
to knock on the door and step well back, not wasting any time in
identifying ourselves. We made sure to be well "tucked in" before dark
after this.

in Bay St Louis we spent three days working with a team of "Habitat
for Humanity" house builders, getting to meet young people from all
parts of the country as well as some of the locals like Al the Baker
who baked fantastic bread three days a week out the back of our
favourite "Mockingbird Cafe". Al kept giving us loaves of freshly
baked French bread, and would not accept payment as he "liked
cyclists".