My Great American Oddessy 1991 - 3 months around the USA on a motorcycle at the age of 22.

 

My Great American Odyssey

 

In July 1991 my Dad died. After struggling with cancer for a few years his life was taken from him leaving a large vacuum in the life of our family. We didn’t see eye to eye on many things, it wasn’t a great father son relationship, but we had many things in common. A love of nature, the outdoors and outdoor activities, walking, scrambling and climbing.

 

I was only 19 years old when he died, and felt a great lose that I would never be able to rebuild the relationship with my Dad which we often loose as we struggle to become our own person through our teenage years.

 

After leaving college in 1990 with some pretty dire A Level results, I got work in a camera shop, flogging cameras. It wasn’t well paid but the people were nice and I began a love affair with photography that has never left me.

 

After switching jobs to another camera shop later that year I realised that I would have to do something with my life otherwise I would go mad.

 

Selling cameras was OK, but my mind was slowly beginning to stagnate. I began to look for something adventurous to do, something a bit mad. Something that would make me think.

 

Then the small screen brought to me an idea that got the grey cells moving. It was an advert for Pepsi Cola, not my favourite drink, but there you go.

 

A dude pulls up at a dusty filling station in the middle of dusty outback America; he steps off his motorbike (immaculately clean), pulls off his shades and asks the attendant if he’s got any Pepsi. The attendant smirks and says no, but he’s got some cola which is obviously inferior to Pepsi. The dude asks where he can get some Pepsi. The attendant points down the road and tells him its about 70 miles down the road, smirking all the more because he’s going to sell some inferior cola. The dude puts his sunglasses back on and says out of the side of his mouth “I’m gonna need some gasssssss”.

 

Whoa, I thought, around America on a motorbike, I must watch Easy Rider (I still haven’t 12 years on). But what an idea, go around America on a motorbike. Things started to move around in my mind a bit quicker now.

 

A number of obstacles lay in my path, I had no money, no idea of what America was like and no motorcycle licence. My last attempt at riding a motor scooter had involved a collision with a gatepost and bending the frame of the bike. I also feared I had left part of a testicle on one of the handlebars.

 

‘We shall overcome’ rang in my mind as I bought books on the USA, looked into getting a bike licence and built up the courage to ask my mum for a substantial loan. I had spared my parents the financial burden of seeing me through university, so I could live in hope.

 

Throughout the later part of 1992 I researched my goal, things fell into place. It felt right. The odd girlfriend had come and gone, the job was going nowhere. I had to do it, for me and no one else.

 

I learned to ride a bike at a training school on a Yamaha RXS 100 cc. It was the sort of thing you’d see a vicar on, but it was the only bike where my feet would touch the ground. In December 1992 I passed my test and from then on my mind was set. I was going.

 

All my friends thought I was mad, which to be quite honest, made me feel like a real hero. Living in a small town with small aspirations created a small-minded atmosphere to be brutally honest. Life in that town was never going to get bigger and at this point I was ready to make a move.

Comments like ‘You’ll get shot, or raped, or worse’ lead to blasé responses as I tried to make people think I was twice as large as Batman. Thing is I’m 5 foot 6 inches with a blow dry, so comments like this always made me think at the end of the night.

 

To confirm what I was doing was right, my Dad had left me a few thousand pounds that would finance my trip nicely. It gave me a warming thought, as I knew he would approve of what I was doing. If I hadn’t spent the money this way, I would of spent it on some stupid car to try and make myself look good. No, this was the right thing to do.

 

The plan was to fly to New York, buy a bike (preferably Harley) ride across southern USA, up West Coast and back again. In between I expected to see and do lots of things as they presented themselves to me. There were things I wanted to see, The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, but in between, I was open to suggestions.

 

Handing in my notice at work was fun. People take great pleasure in handing in there notice and telling people they are off to another job that pays so much more, with more holiday, pension schemes, etc. I just told them I was going around America on a motorbike for the fun of it. To be fair they were good employers and I had many good friends there.

 

So I was to leave on Monday 12^th April 1993. The month before going, I lapped up all the attention from my friends, I was the star attraction that made me feel a step higher than Mr. Major Ego Snr. I snogged the girl at work whom I really fancied at my works leaving do, I held court wherever I went and the night before I left, I threw a goodbye party all for myself.

 

It was quite a relaxed affair, there was lots of talking, and exchanging addresses and contact details. The enormity of what I was doing hadn’t really sunk in.

 

 

Tuesday 13^th April

 

Good old Do Ronny took me to Crewe Railway Station at 4am in the morning to catch the train. I had lodged at his house for the past year and I knew that he knew what I was doing would be good for me. The train pulled out of the station and I waved back at him. This was it, I didn’t know what to think, it may have been 4am in the morning but I was beginning to get the willies.

 

The train stopped at Stafford Station, I half thought of jumping out and catching the train back to fain a splendid practical joke. The massive wave of Egotistical pride that I had revelled in over the past month was now washing me uncontrollably towards America. I sat back in my train seat, opposite a fat man snoring and washed along to Heathrow Airport. I didn’t sleep, I was thinking of way to get out of this hair-brained scheme.

 

I arrived at Heathrow Airport full of trepidation and anguish. I had thought out a good get out plan of going to New York but coming home after a week because I couldn’t find a bike, or some, any other excuse. So I would go.

 

Feeling easier with myself, I checked in and took my first look at the plane, Air India, with whom I was flying was on strike so it was a nice Virgin Atlantic 747. I took my seat, sucked my sweet and looked out at England. It may be some time before I saw it again.

 

The flight was spent glued to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Greenland or any other landmass, but it was relatively dull, a whole 6 hours 50 minutes later we were coming in to land at John F Kennedy Airport in Brooklyn. This was it!

 

At first sight of the USA thoughts of going back evaporated and thoughts of the road ahead became a burning ambition and goal. My next big hurdle was to get through Immigration at the airport. What would they think of some little English dude who wanted to travel around their country on a motorbike?

 

After giving a brief resume of what I was to be doing to the officer he gave me a wink and said “Enjoy!” I waited for him to say ‘your trip’ or ‘it’ but that was it so I packed up my bits said thanks and got away as quick as I could before he changed his mind.

 

Coming out of the airport with my 40-litre rucksack, a small holdall and a tiny backpack, I was confronted with a scene of bewilderment. Coaches were ferrying people off, yellow taxis whizzed about. How was I to get into town?

 

A chaperone, noticing my obvious confusion told me a coach would be coming soon to take some backpackers to some of the mid town hostels. So I hitched up with them.

 

The 30 minute coach ride into town was quite an eye opener, so many people living so close together, the fabulously rich in stretch limos and the chronically poor scraping a living in the gutter. It was a thought which would follow me around the country on my journey.

 

The bus made it’s way through the busy streets, buildings towered above us, people everywhere, ‘hurry, hurry’ seemed to be the underlying thought on most people’s mind. As we got off the bus, I found a quiet corner to get out my rough guide to the USA to try and find a hostel, somewhere close.

 

The hostel was well placed on 45^th Street just off Time Square, and fitted my budget. It was a bit grubby, but I wasn’t expecting a five star penthouse apartment for $17 a night. In my dorm were four Aussies, one German and one Brit. All were very nice but I was fairly reserved as I was 4000 miles away from home.

 

Michael, the German lad and I got talking and soon hit it off. I told him I was a touch freaked out by the enormity of New York and he seemed to understand. We went out that evening to have a look around we walked past Central Park and to the Upper West Side where we found some food from a deli and drank a few bottles of beer in paper bags on a park bench like a couple of winos. It was awesome!

 

Sense and sensibility have caught up with me about New York and I think I will enjoy my stay. I have concentrated on not sticking out too much. I really don’t want anyone to call me tourist! Thoughts and talking with Michael brought my mind around to my next challenge, getting a bike.

 

 

Wednesday 14^th April

 

Searching through the NY yellow pages didn’t help my confidence in finding a bike, it was all looking like big money to me and I was only planning on spending about $1500. I planned a trip around Manhattan to call in on four or five shops.

 

 After a few no goes, I found a shop, Camrod Motors on 23^rd Street with lots of older looking bikes. Chatting to the chap, I told him my budget and hoped he could show me something, which would be suitable. I had forgotten about buying a Harley at this point, I just didn’t have the money. Anything would do, apart from a scooter. That would be just too much to live down.

 

I was shown to a rather sporty looking 600cc Kawasaki Ninja. Shiny sports bike syndrome took immediate hold and I started getting out my travellers cheques. At $1500 it was in my price range and dreams of popping wheelies over the Golden Gate Bridge smothered out any concern of comfort, load carrying capacity, ease of maintenance or the state of the thing.

 

All of a sudden there was a bit of back room shouting and out came the guy to tell me that the bike wasn’t for sale now. Hum, dodgy geezers I thought. However they did have a bike for $1000 that I might like.

 

On first sight my heart sank, it was a Honda 650 Nighthawk, kind of basic average looking motorcycle territory, but it did have a shaft drive which would mean no chain tightening, and there was room to put stuff, it looked comfortable and easy to look after.

 

It was ideal. It would be mine, so I bought it there and then, without a test ride. You wouldn’t catch me ever trying to ride a motorcycle on the streets of New York. We’d cross the bridge when we reached it.

 

It would be ready on Friday, so after all the money counting and insurance deal, I walked away thinking of distant shores and the open road. I still had two days to live in New York City though, so I thought I’d better take in some of the sights.

 

The afternoon was spent on Battery Park, looking at the World Trade Centre and around Wall Street, which gave me nightmares of little people making the world turn around. Returning back to the hostel two new arrivals, Aric from Israel and Chi, a Chinese Glaswegian, together with Michael suggested we should go and take a look at the New York Motor Show.

 

We took a cab driven by a guy who knew New York less than I downtown to the show. It was full of huge Yankee gas-guzzling cars made for testosterone-overloaded blokes. It was quite obscene. ‘So this is what makes America tick?’ I thought. It kind of confirmed so many thoughts I had about the Americans. But saying that, this was a motor show and how many garages have semi clad women writhing about on hunks of inefficient metal. I wasn’t about to pass judgement just yet.

 

We then headed on to Chinatown were we found the seediest bar possible for some beers. Cold, yes, taste, no, alcohol, barely. At midnight I suddenly found my body clock screaming ‘Go to bed!’ In reality it was 6 in the morning and I had to sleep. Late night New York was a scary place, dark alleys, lots of noises, none of them friendly, everyone walking with their heads down. The subway was full of people in one car, the middle one where the guard sits. We squeezed in and enjoyed the contact with similar scared people grouping together like terrified animals in a cage.

 

I crashed out immediately but Chi and Aric went off into the night to look for some weed. Funny smells and insane giggling interrupted sleep. I was too tired to be bothered.

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 15^th April

 

Chi and Aric looked like they had died many days ago as they got up, but they soon disappeared to catch flights. I spent most of the day as a tourist, shopping for maps, cookers and the odd trinket. I ascended the Empire State Building which was fantastic, but as the cloud was coming down I had only a glimpse of the city below. What struck me was the number of taxis. I had heard something like one in four of vehicles in Manhattan were taxis. Now I had the proof.

 

Then on to the tip of the Island where I took the ferry to Liberty Island. Spent an hour in a queue to get to the top of the statute, looked out at the sea and came back down. It was a bit of an anticlimax.

 

Michael and I went up to the Upper East Side that evening and had a meal in an Italian Restaurant. We got quite deep into thoughts of travel, interests and life. We have both seamed to have walked hundreds of miles around this city in the last few days. I am worried my Dad’s boots aren’t going to last the trip!

 

 

Friday 16^th April

 

This was the day I would be leaving NYC and to be quite honest, I was ready for it. Yes I could of seen so many other things, but I only ever felt like a tourist in New York, and I didn’t want to be snapping this and that, doing this, seeing that. I wanted to get on the road and head out West.

 

So it was with much disappointment I found my bike would not be ready till Monday. What the hell would I do with myself in this town for another three days? It was beginning to get on top of me, the cars, the noise, the snoring in the hostel, the bugs down the bog. I was all NYC’ed out.

 

I thought I’d look at some midtown architecture, the Rockerfeller Centre, the UN building, but all that I could feel was a burning desire to get on the road and find somewhere else. Somewhere that wasn’t a big city. It was at that moment I became a lifelong member of the country bumpkin clan.

 

I bought a few things, looked at a few things but my mind was a million miles away. Things came back into perspective rather quickly when a security guard came out of a bank with a cash box and his gun drawn, and cocked. I stood open mouthed, this was every day living, no one batted and eye lid. This was America. I suddenly felt lonely, and wished to be home tucked away in my little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

 

Two Germans had arrived that evening and we all went out for a Chinese meal, where we were ceremoniously ripped off. Nothing new there. Complaining was not an option because nobody could understand one another. New York was beginning to suck.

 

 

Saturday 17^th April

 

Michael had got a contract to drive a car to somewhere in the South and wanted me to read through it to make sure he wasn’t being ripped off. It looked pretty good and I was sad to lose my friend as he planned to leave, he had taught me so much about being and inconspicuous traveller and for that I would be grateful. It would be good advice which I would rely on during the months ahead.

 

We walked together up 7^th Avenue to Central Park, which was alive with life. Joggers, skateboarders, cyclists, baseball games, families and even people flying kites all had descended on the Park and what a wonderful sight it was. Quite different from the foreboding place I had looked into on Thursday night.

 

We walked through Amsterdam and Harlem to get to the Youth Hostel on 107^th Street. My feet felt like lead, it must have been four miles or more.

 

Harlem had a great feel about it, very positive, despite its poor image in films and the press. I found out there had been a real drive to improve the area and it showed. Every face was black, but no hint of a ghetto. People seemed to hold their heads up high and love their community. It was good to see.

 

After getting some phone cards from the youth hostel we took the Subway downtown so we could walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, another New York icon. It was nice to get a good view of Manhattan from outside the steel and concrete labyrinth it created. Everything looks smaller if you stand further away from it.

 

On the way back we passed through Wall Street, which had been heaving with people just a few days before. Now there were 3 kids playing on skateboards along the whole street. And that was it. I rejoiced, New Yorkers DID know there was a time to stop. It was eerie, a seat of power gone to sleep.

 

After massaging my feet back to life in the hostel we went to an Irish bar on 7^th Avenue. It was great fun, good music and something that reminded me of Guinness was on tap. I rolled in at 1am after skilfully dodging the prostitutes, pimps and pushers in Time Square.

 

It had been a good day, I had seen lots of positives about New York City, but I had had enough of it. I was itching to leave.

 

 

Sunday 18^th April

 

It was midday before I surfaced, just in time to say goodbye to Michael. He was heading in my general direction, so who knows we may meet again. I headed back up to Central Park and wrote postcards in a delightfully sunny spot.

 

Thoughts of home were now very far and few between. I had enjoyed this big city, but was so looking forward to seeing the rest of the USA. I found it funny that I had been so scared to come. It hadn’t been hard to get here, find accommodation, get my bike, insurance and supplies. I was beginning to walk taller in mind and body. I could do this, and I was going to enjoy it.

 

I called home and to a friends, everyone was slightly concerned as to how I was getting on, but I didn’t give them much time to talk, I blabbed and blabbed about who I’d met, what I’d seen till the phone spat out the phone card. Previously I had been trying to load $4.25 in quarters into a phone box (in 20 seconds) to make an international call. After 20 seconds the phone would spit $4 or $3.75 onto the pavement to my embarrassment. It looked like I was in Vegas with my lucky y-fronts on.

 

Took at trip to Chinatown where I looked around the markets, all of which were heaving with people. Chinese and Italian were the languages of choice. English seemed to be rarely spoken. Things looked good value though and very fresh. This I guess was the place to buy good food.

I headed back to the hostel and got a goods night sleep. Tomorrow I would hit the road.

 

 

Monday 19^th April.

 

I checked out of my hostel and trawled around midtown New York finding some diversion until the mid-afternoon when I could pick up my bike. The best I could find was to read and feed the pigeons at Madison Square Gardens. Every 10 minutes I would check my watch to see the time slowly ticking away.

 

At the bike shop, I had to start thinking quick. First and foremost, I had to start looking like I knew what I was doing. This was paramount, as there were three or four mechanics all looking at me to see this English guy going around the country on a bike that they’d sold him.

 

I examined the bike, just a bit closer this time, now ‘shiny bike’ syndrome gave way to ‘have I bought a lemon’ syndrome.

 

One of the front fork seals had blown which would make the bike handle badly. I asked the salesman who told me that the price didn’t include repairing that. I tutted and thought I’d put it right myself, at some point, maybe. Well, we’d see how it went.

 

So it was wheeled out to me and I spent half an hour strapping the rucksack shoulder straps under the indicator stubs (made a nice backrest) and strapping my other two bags together to go over them and tie on. It didn’t look too big or cumbersome. All I hoped was that the extra weight would pull the bike down a bit so my heels would reach the ground. No luck, I was still on tiptoes.

 

Putting the key in the ignition and firing her up (on an electric starter, never done that before), I was presented with a few problems. I was about to ride a bike six times bigger than I’d ever ridden. On the wrong side of the road. In New York City, one of the most congested cities in the world. My feet barely touched the ground. And it was 5pm; rush hour was in full swing.

 

I kicked it off the side-stand and managed to balance it up in front of the ‘guys’ and pulled out into the traffic. So far, I was looking good. Pulling up at the next traffic lights, I stopped, overbalanced and dropped the bike. At least the ‘guys’ hadn’t seen it.

 

Picking the bike up would have been easy if it were not for the large load on top of it. It took all of my strength. I was encouraged by other New York motorists who heartily peeped their horn as I took my second try as the lights turned to green.

 

“Yasshole!” Some guy said to me, and drawing my breath on the handlebars I extended a finger. More tooting told me to get back on, but the lights had gone red again. Not the best of all starts.

 

I teetered and tottered my way through New York praying I wouldn’t drop my bike on anyone’s car, or run anyone over, or crash into a police car. Believe you me, in those fragile minutes, anything could have happened.

 

I managed to find the Holland Tunnel and got off Manhattan and into New Jersey, my first state crossing; the traffic was heavy but flowing, and that was much easier as I didn’t have to stop. Stopping was a 50:50 gamble at the moment.

 

Onto the New Jersey Turnpike and now I was free. I glanced back at New York City bathed in a golden sunset, goodbye. I was on my way and now I felt I wanted to ride forever. The bike felt good, plenty of horses, my stuff was nice and secure it was time to wind it up as the sun set and the commuter traffic slowly disappeared.

 

I had never been over 60 mph on a bike before, so doing 95 on the turnpike was a bit of a hoot. Signs for Philadelphia came up and reason told me to find the hostel there, but I just couldn’t be bothered. I was enjoying riding so on I went. Then came Baltimore. Narr. Then came 1am.

 

I pulled off the highway and onto a car park in a country park. I was absolutely dead on my feet I put my helmet down on the floor for a pillow, laid my sleeping bag over me and went to sleep.

 

 

Tuesday 20^th April

 

It was about 3am when I was awoken by bright shining lights and approaching footsteps. I got ready for anything. “What ‘ya doin’ here boy?” I was asked. It was a State Trooper to my relief and I explained to him that I was just having a rest. I expected to get a ticket for something, but to my surprise and delight he told me that he wouldn’t advise sleeping here but he’d come back and check on me in a few hours. What a nice man.

 

I slept in fits and starts due to my neck being at right angles, so as dawn approached I got up and made some breakfast. A hot cup of tea (teabags brought with me) did the trick and I jumped back onto the bike.

 

It was 5am when I got back onto Route 95 and headed towards Washington DC, It was only 35 miles away. As I got closer the traffic became really heavy and eventually stopped. Instead of waiting in the queues I headed down the middle of the traffic and was greeted by lots of gesticulations and horn peeping (I later found out this was an illegal road manoeuvre).

 

I had planned to spend a couple of days in DC, but as I got into the city centre I though I couldn’t be bothered. I had seen enough of big cities. I wanted to see a bit of the countryside. So I rode around looking at a few sites, the Washington monument, Capitol Hill and The White House.

 

Ahead of me I could see a police car on the wrong side of the road and a big band of joggers on the pavement. Leading the crowd was none other than The President, Bill Clinton. I was going to stop and ask him if he had a room going for the night but I had stared too long and had to take evasive manoeuvres around the police car.

 

After that I thought I’d better jump the state, just in case the police had put out a search for a hesitant suicide motorcyclist trying to kill the President.

 

Out of DC on Route 66 I entered Virginia, the 5^th State I’d seem in 24 hours, I needed to slow down or the trip would be over in a week. The road slowly rose through pleasant wooded valley into a much slower way of life. I was sure I could hear ‘The Waltons’ music playing somewhere.

 

I was suddenly feeling very tired, the bad night’s sleep, clinging onto the bike at high speed and just the shear physical effort of balancing the thing and manhandling it had really taken it out of me. The time was right to stop and find out if my camping arrangements were going to work whilst it was warm and sunny.

 

Close to Front Royal, a DC getaway town I found a campground. It was in a pleasant wooded area and felt so relaxing. My ‘tent’ consisted of a waterproof sheet 2 by 1.25 metres, a piece of string and 6 tent pegs. I tied the string between two trees, draped the sheet over and pegged it out. This was the first time I’d tried it and things were looking good. I piled my rucksack at one end and there was my tent. I was quite pleased with it.

 

Sipping a nice cup of tea, looking out of the open end and listening to the birds was my first time of blissful quiet on this continent.

 

I was in my element.

 

The warm spring sun beat down on the trees and bushes, everything seemed so clear and clean. It was a welcome change from the cities.

 

I dozed for a few hours but upon waking decided to get some more food in and have a look around the town. I was feeling so chilled out and relaxed I almost got run over crossing the street.

 

When I got back to the campground the rather attractive girl on reception called me to come in and talk to her. ‘If I must’, I thought.  And could she talk, “oh geeee, going coast to coast, what a blast, my friend and I would love to do that on stars and stripes Ninjas, oh yeah, would love to go to Frisco….” On it went for some time.

 

I finished our talk with a gentle reminder to Miss Motormouth that I was really enjoying the peace and quiet of Virginia.

 

Back to the tent and start some planning.

 

I was going to miss Florida out and head south for New Orleans, taking in Nashville, the home of country music, and everything on the way. That would be my first step towards what was really ringing my bell, the deserts, Grand Canyon and Yosemite.

 

I cooked myself some dinner and found myself quite tired again, I was planning to travel a long way the next day, and so I turned in early.

 

 

Wednesday 21^st April

 

It was 6:30 in the morning and it was raining on my sheet. I had slept well, but was now concerned I was about to become very wet.

 

A prolonged lie in of one and a half hours confirmed that my sheet was made of stiffer stuff than I, as I remained resolutely dry. Things were looking up!

 

Had a good wash and breakfast. After arriving in New York, bagels, preferably with cream cheese, were becoming a staple breakfast. They were really good, all the better in the open with birds singing and not a care in the world.

 

Breaking camp was quickly done and I was on the road by 9:30 heading along route 81. I had a long way to travel to an American Youth Hostel near Galax close to the border with North Carolina.

 

The roads were clear and I made steady progress at a sedate 65mph on the interstate highway.

 

By about midday it started to rain so I stopped at a roadside Burger King to eat and wait for a break in the rain. I dragged my gear inside and ate with my eye on the sky.

 

The rain subsided and I continued only to find heavier rain to greet me. The rain seeped through my clothes and I had to stop a number of times to clean my visor. It was beginning to get miserable.

 

I turned off the interstate highway and rose steadily through the hills towards the AYH where I arrived very wet, near hypothermic and in bad spirits.

 

The welcome was to reverse all of these. The AYH was part of a couple’s home who sat me down besides a fire, dried out my gear and chatted on into the evening with me. I was the only guest there and we had a really nice evening with lots of inspiring conversation.

 

I was 3000 feet up in the Blue Smokey Mountains, it had begun to snow and I settled into my warm bed. My clothes were steaming away by the log fire and I knew tomorrow would be another day, another adventure.

 

 

Thursday 22^nd April

 

I woke from the most comfortable sleep I had had in a long time, it was cold and blowing outside with a clear sky. My hosts offered many a warm jumper to help me on my way, but my clothes were crisply dry so I refused their kind offer.

 

Leaving later than planned I got onto route 58, the road to Damascus (I kid you not), and travelled west towards the warmer climes of lowland Tennessee. The road got higher and higher, well over 4000ft with snow lying on the ground.

 

The road became fairly narrow and difficult to pass when a sheepdog came running out onto the road woofing at me and forced me to dump my bike through a ditch and into a hedge.

 

After retrieving my head from the hedge a nice old chap, who had seen the whole thing came up to me slapping his cap on his thigh in laughter and helped me get my bike back on the road. The accent has definitely changed to a southern twang now. The dog just sat by the roadside, panting in a ‘job done’ kind of way. I gave it a hard stare as I started back on the road.

 

It was starting to get really cold by now. I was wearing all my clothes and still freezing, I was glad to see the long road leading down to Tennessee which looked like a much warmer place.

 

I had lunch at a roadside McDonalds and slowly descended towards Knoxville, where I arrived late afternoon. I had thought of stopping at an AYH there but as it was so much warmer at this lower altitude, I carried on to find a place to camp on the way to Nashville.

 

A milestone in my journey took place an hour or so later as I passed through my first time zone, I was now in Central Standard Time and near enough, my first 1000 miles of the trip. Things were going well so far.

 

As evening approached I turned off Interstate Route 40 and found a campground at State Park 50. It was a lake surrounded by forest and pitches for motor homes. It was also deserted so I found my spot and made home.

 

How things have changed in a day. I am walking around in a t-shirt, looking at a glowing sunset. It is very pleasant.

 

Thought turned to home, how as everyone? I was missing it, yet a burning desire was pulling me deeper into the heart of America. There was something I had to find. I guess it was reality of America, not the films, the soaps, not the news stories. I was here to see the incredible landscapes, the heart of the people I met and the wildlife, which roamed it. I was really beginning to love the place.

 

Suddenly, worrying if my mum had sold my car was not so much of an issue. I had only bought it for £400 anyway.

 

I made myself some food and settled down for the night. The stars were my only light for the night.

Sometimes I felt afraid as I heard noises I’d never heard before, sometimes the peace of it made me thank God for all creation. Then I fell asleep.

 

 

Friday 23^rd April

 

 

Woke early and had a good breakfast before packing up and heading into Nashville. My guidebook recommended the Fiddler’s Inn Campground so that’s where I went. The whole of the town seemed so full of hype it was hard to stomach.

 

Everywhere you went Country and Western music blared out at you. People walked around in Stetson hats and suits.

 

I felt quite out of place. Here I was the ‘roaming cowboy’, in a city full of roaming cowboys, cowards of the county and eight stone cowboys. I was beginning to feel quite low.

 

I took the opportunity to wash my clothes in the camp laundrette and plan on how to get out of here. I wanted to have a look around, but the whole place was just too full on C+W. I was getting a headache.

 

Took a ride into town and bought an FM radio, so I could listen out for weather reports. Spent the afternoon pulling the headphones to bits so I could get them in my helmet.

 

The evening was spent in the camp bar with wall-to-wall lonesome cowboys, dixie chicks and mind numbing music. I would have got really drunk, but the beer was, and generally in the whole of the USA, so poor and lacking in alcohol I just got more depressed. I didn’t talk to anyone that night, I was so hoping to have a chat with someone but everyone was just lapping up the bilge seeping out of the speakers.

 

I decided to study the inside of my tent. Even there, the three cord sorry assed music could be just heard to stop sleep taking me away from it all.

 

At about 10pm a huge thunderstorm hit, I prayed for a direct hit on my forehead to obliterate the C+W blues which had been forced on me during the day. No such luck, but I couldn’t hear it any more so I went to sleep not worrying whether I would be washed down a storm drain. Knowing my luck they would have speakers down there to keep the good old Nashville rats in the right mood.

Saturday 24^th April

 

I awoke to find myself dry and in an ecstatic mood, knowing I would be leaving this place very soon. I had felt very alone in this city.

 

Onto the freeway and Route 40 took me west towards Memphis. The experience of the past day told me not to stay in Memphis because a wall-to-wall Elvis experience would cause me total loss of the will to live.

 

My radio was useful and good to listen to, when I had found a station, which didn’t play C+W. Even then the adverts were difficult to stomach. “Get down to Dirk Swinder’s Oldsmobile showroom NOW!” etc every two minutes.

 

I eventually go to Memphis and just had to have a look at Graceland, Elvis’s home.

 

I rode past, bucket loads of tourists were being ferried off coaches through the gates, not me, I’d ride on past Elvis’s jet and into Mississippi. It began to get late so I turned off into a National Park and found a campground. It was deserted so I had a choice of spots.

 

Things had certainly changed since my last camp. It was a lot hotter, the swampland surrounded the campsite and it felt very humid.

 

After setting up camp I made my dinner and took a walk. Ambling along with not a care in the world I was shaken by a recoiling hiss. I froze.

 

Less than a foot away from my boot was a snake coiled up in a ‘just one step closer punk…’ kind of attitude.

 

We stared at each other for a while. Tongues flicked, feet quivered and eyes never moved. He was staring me out.

 

I slowly backed away, quite shaken by the event. In the UK you never expect to run into a dangerous animal, unless it has escaped from the zoo. It was different out here. Dangerous little critters everywhere.

 

I went back to my tent and cursed the fact that it had no doors. I spent a restless night dreaming my stare out friend (he did win the competition) was coming for me.

 

 

Sunday 25^th April

 

It had seemed that I hadn’t slept all night. I watched the sky pale and dawn break. Only now I dozed hoping the daylight would save me from snakey.

 

I switched my radio on and tuned into a deep south Negro service which was good fun to listen to. I wished that I could have been there. My aim today would be to get to New Orleans, and it would be a fair way, so I was pleased to leave old snakey behind. He still gives me the creeps to this day.

 

The roads south were interesting, through swampland forests and then on raised highways above the swamps. The raised highways did provide one problem, as there were no service areas.

 

I finally got into the outskirts of New Orleans in terminal need of a piddle. I turned off into the nearest trading estate and let go of a couple of gallons before I noticed a bunch of people giggling at me on their fag break. I didn’t care. I was in ecstasy. Having a wee can be so good when you’ve waited that long.

 

Finding the AYH was a problem. I was going around in circles. I got the impression there was a lot of tension and oppression in this city, gangs of kids out on the street, all of the same race, blacks, whites, Hispanics, all looking very aggressive. I guess racism was a driving force in this town, and I didn’t like it.

 

Upon finding the AYH I crashed out for a while and then had a cold shower. The whole town was so hot and humid; it was quite hard to adjust.

 

A few guys from the hostel took me to a jazz club, as it was Jazz Fest month in New Orleans. We spent a whole evening listening to people playing the harmonica. I thought I would be getting the C+W blues again but it was really good, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

 

Walking back to the AYH, I looked around at the city, it gave off an air of old money, old ways, we don’t change here. Fine if you are white and upper class. I decided I would leave tomorrow.

 

 

Monday 26^th April

 

Headed for the French Quarter, which is just about the centre of New Orleans, it was just like what I had seen in the movies. It was quite interesting but full of tourists. I bought some t-shirts and mailed them home. It looked like I was carrying too much on the bike anyway.

 

My clothes consisted of two pairs of trousers, three t-shirts, three pairs of socks, three underpants, one fleece jacket, one rainproof jacket, walking boots and my climbing boots. It was very liberating to have so little baggage.

 

Got back to the hostel and decided to put this place behind me and see how far I could get in a day. My next big thing on the list of things to see was the Grand Canyon, and that was 1500 miles away.

 

I got comfy on the bike and settled down to see how many miles I could get behind me. New Orleans had been an altogether bad experience. It seemed to me that poverty was rife amongst the non-white population and they were kept there by the status quo. It was by far the most oppressive and dangerous feeling city I had been in.

 

The Louisiana highways were really interesting, raised above the marshes and swamplands below. I wanted to stop, but I didn’t. I was keen to put miles behind me.

 

300 miles later I left Louisiana and entered Texas. The landscape had changed and so had the climate. It was now flat arable land and had gone from humid and hot to just hot. Texas was my first no helmet state, so I tied the lid onto the back of the bike and carried on with the wind in my hair.

 

The sun began to go down and I saw that I could just about make Dallas so I soldiered on. I was feeling tired and aching from the windblast.

 

Arriving in Dallas, a city full of 12 lane freeways and interchanges, I found a motel and crashed out at 9pm. I had also found that riding with no helmet on was a bad idea in the hot Texas sun, especially with no sun cream. My face was red and oozing out water. I was pleased with the dent I had made into the journey, 530 miles in 10 hours.

 

 

Tuesday 27^th April

 

I looking in the mirror and was surprised to look at what appeared to be a stranger. I haven’t bothered shaving for a while so I was pretty hairy and with the sunburn on my head, I looked like something off Doctor Who.

 

I wanted to get a big chunk of my journey over with today, so I set off when I could, this time with my helmet on. This was to protect my head form the sun and protect others from my face.

 

Getting out of Dallas was hard, the freeways were hard to negotiate and find my way. I finally found my route, a small dual carriage way to Amarillo through towns with sweet names like Sunset, Fruitlands, Goodnight and Childress. Other towns provoked thoughts, town s like Ashtola, Bowie and Ponder.

 

The bike had been performing faultlessly and I was now in fairly good control of it. Dropping it was now a rare occurrence. On a big long straight, I decided to see what it would do and wound it up and up. Things were getting a bit hairy at 125 mph as my bags were beginning to flap about so I slowed down to a more sociable speed. I was grinning for the next five miles though!

 

As I approached Amarillo I came to the realisation that Texas was a boring state, big and boring. Endless flat fields full of cattle, the odd nodding donkey pulling oil out of the ground and endless red earth, chewed up by cattle’s feet. In one field all I could see were moocows.

 

I got to Amarillo and found that sweet Marie was not waiting for me so I followed a tourist sign to ‘The Grand Canyon of Texas’. Anything but red fields.

 

It turned out to be quite interesting, a river worn canyon with a campground at the bottom. It would do for me. I had been sleeping in beds for too long.

 

Cooked a hearty meal and chatted to a chap named Doug who was a park ranger from New Mexico. He told me my friend ‘snakey’ was a sidewinder, not deadly, but very poisonous. He also told me a story on some guy sleeping in a sleeping bag and a snake crawled in with him and rapped up for a sleep on his warm crotch. The poor guy has to lie there still as a post till morning and the thing slid away. It wasn’t the bedtime story I wanted to hear.

 

Just as I was putting up my tent, I found the rain stated, so I draped it over a park bench and slept under it. Lightning illuminated the sky to the north and put on quite a show. I knew sleep would be fairly interrupted tonight.

 

 

Wednesday 28^th April

 

The rain, which had made steady progress under the bench, awaked me at 5am and was now about to get my sleeping bag wet, so I got up and carried on West.

 

Everything was damp including me and the clouds in the sky indicated I was going to get damper.

 

Into New Mexico and the deserts began to show their face. It was still cold as I was something like 7000 feet up but the scenery was like something out of a John Wayne western film.

 

Throughout the day it got warmer and the clouds slowly disappeared. I was beginning to dry out. The landscape was something I’d never seen before, a proper desert, I was feeling excited.

 

I stopped for lunch at a roadside diner and was joined by a big motorcycle gang who were ever so pleased to hear what I was doing they told me to ride with them, but after an hour of doing 40mph, I decided to leave them and carry on at 65mph so I could get to Albuquerque.

 

It was about 4pm when I got to Albuquerque and to my great delight I saw a mini tornado cross a street, settle over a shopping trolley wheeled by a poor unfortunate and throw all of the shopping out of it.

 

The traffic lights changed and as I took off I saw the poor lady picking up her shopping just shaking her head. It must happen a lot in Albuquerque!

 

The town was as wild west as it would get. Unlike Nashville, people wore Stetson hats, but this time had Smith and Weston ‘38s strapped to their legs. Even so, it felt like a fun place to be. I really felt like I was at a frontier town, what lay ahead would be a mystery.

 

I booked into a cheap motel and had a quiet meal out in the town. When I got back I spent too long watching movies on the HBO channel and fell asleep.

 

 

Thursday 29^th April

 

I was hoping to make the Grand Canyon today so I got up feeling tired but raring for another day of interstate freeway fun.

 

The interstate freeways in the cities can be 12 lanes wide but out in the countryside they are only 4 lanes. They are also made of concrete, not tarmac, so every10 meters or so there is a joint, which makes your bike go ‘clunk’. Multiply this by a few hundred thousand per day and you get a touch sick of it.

 

I was, in the main, trying to stick to the interstate 65mph limit, to conserve fuel more than anything else. This meant getting past the huge US trucks was quite a bind. You would approach from behind in their drag and find it easy, as you overtook it would get harder. Then as you approached the rear of the tractor unit a wall of air slowed you down. A considerable amount of throttle would need to be used to get past this wall. If you maintained it you would be travelling at 80mph once you had cleared the lorry.

 

I found the best thing was to just boot it past lorries at a silly speed and forget about good fuel consumption.

 

I was on holiday.

 

I passed through the Navajo Indian reservation, one of the biggest in the USA and witnessed one of the biggest crimes of this young country.

 

There were these proud resourceful and respectful people reduced to selling cheap fags and booze in their ‘nation’ now consisting of desert and scrub, where once they lived with nature following the buffalo, never scaring the landscape, never greedy, never out of touch with their place in the world.

 

I stopped at a shop to re-supply and saw it every Indian’s face, sadness, living a life they didn’t want, the chains of other man’s demons cast upon them. I felt a dark sadness in my heart that these people had been oppressed to this terrible world we have imposed upon them. How it must be so in so many parts of the world. I felt bad to be a Westerner.

 

I would of liked to be an Indian, living with nature, not against it. Having the knowledge and wisdom to move with it and accept you place within it.

 

How we have fallen by thinking we are above the natural order of things. I fear nature will rear her head and do away with us, like a fat, lazy ungrateful son, who for the thousandth time has eaten everything in the larder.

 

I stopped for lunch at the Petrified Forest and saw some petrified trees. My face had healed quite a bit so they didn’t become more petrified. Nothing could make them more petrified as they were trees, which somehow had become fossilised and were now visible, I didn’t go too far but they were stone tree trunks. Quite fascinating as Mr Spock would say.

 

Back on the road and Grand Canyon fever was taking hold. Speed limits ignored, wildlife on road signs cast to one side, old people crossing the road signs, positively laughed at and thumb placed over the horn. I wanted to see one of the eight wonders of the world.

 

I stopped as I caught my first glimpse of a big mountain. The San Francisco Mountain, 12 000 ft high and snow capped as it was viewed from a desert as the tumbleweed tumbled by. I was feeling like a pioneer.

 

I hung a right a Flagstaff and was getting close, I had loud tunes in the headphones of my radio, but something just didn’t feel right as I motored down the road. It soon passed and an hour or so later I arrived at Grand Canyon, which was beside the, well, you know.

 

There were loads of people on the streets looking up into the air and around in amazement. At last, I had a welcoming committee that I deserved. Maybe not.

 

The slight funny feeling I had an hour ago, nothing more than a fart in the wind had been an earthquake. The epicentre was only a few miles from where I had arrived. It had measured 8.7 on the Richter scale, which was a really big earthquake.

 

Rocks had gone tumbling down the canyon, drinks were spilt and old ladies had fallen over. I wanted to of felt that, but I didn’t. I just felt a bit uneasy for a moment or two as I rode on my bike. It would have been nice to of gotten up earlier in the morning.

 

I found the campsite easy enough and pitched up quick, gobbling down my dinner I jumped back on the bike and went to look at this amazing landscape. And wow, it was.

 

I had ridden a few miles out of town to get a nice quiet peak of the place. There were still a few people around but they were all in awe like me, so stayed shut up.

 

Beyond me, 12 miles to the other side of the canyon lay a levelled canyon with little peaks sticking up to tease the imagination. Slowly it descended to the Colorado River over one mile below our current altitude. The levels meant I couldn’t see the river.

I stared and stared; as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon and gave the best performance I have ever seen it give. Supporting actors were also in best form and gave a spectacular performance. When I finally looked around, I was alone; I had been there for one and a half hours, just looking.

 

The Grand Canyon is not a place to say ‘Oh Gee’ or take pictures of. It’s a place to look at. It will put you life in perspective, it will make everything else look possible and more than anything, it will look beautiful.

 

I walked back to the bike; in the moonlight I read a sigh saying ‘do not try to walk to the bottom and back in one day, you are sure to die’.

 

I was rather convinced that this was put in place to dissuade fat Americans. No tomorrow I would go down. And besides, I was hard. I was British.

 

 

Friday 30^th April

 

I was up and raring to go, I’d been to the supermarket and was at the top of the Kaibab South Rim Trail at 8:45am. Surely I could get to the bottom in three hours and then get back in six. Signs warned that helicopter rescue was not possible. Yeah not economically viable more like.

 

The Grand Canyon was like a playground compared to the squally, windswept mountains of north Wales, where me dear old dad had been extracted from a mountainside with barely a few feet of rotor space to clear.

 

Still I wasn’t bothered, I could crawl out using my teeth if all else failed.

 

As I walked down the whole character, plants and ecosystem of the place changed, as well as the climate.

 

The dusty cold desert at the top led to a steep path through the rock face, which descended 3000 feet to a middle plateau, which was markedly hotter. Here small scrub grew and was still green. Later in the year it would not survive in the heat. The middle plateau gave way to another sharp descent to the Colorado River, again 3000 feet further below.

 

I met up with two Americans who were walking down and going up another trail to the village. Geoff and Rob were two cool duded who allowed me to hang around their huge personas as we descended the trail towards the bottom where we found ourselves at midday.

 

It was boiling hot, over 100^oF. Bushy cacti grew and little else. I looked up at where I had come from, it was a long way down, seven miles and it would certainly be a longer time to get back up.

 

At the bottom of the Canyon was a little hut called Phantom Ranch. I would of preferred not to see any sign of civilisation, but as I was out of water and very thirsty I abandoned all ethics and skipped in for an iced tea. It was just what I needed, so I had another one, and another. I only had my half litre water bottle and the recommendations were to carry at least two litres to get back up again. I filled by bottle and two paper cups I had had my beverages in and set off, back up the South Kaibab Trail.

 

Going was slow, the sun and heat drained the energy from me as well as my good cheer. Shade was hard to come by and I knew my sun cream would not last the torrents of sweat coming off my face.

 

My dad’s walking boots developed a loose lower lip and dragged up the path furthering my effort to get on. I really didn’t want to trip up and fall off one of the occasional precipices the few thousand feet into the River.

 

People were seldom seen giving me wild thoughts of walking the wrong way or into some desolate landscape.

 

I finally drunk my last paper cup of water and my spirits were raised as I could swing my arms like a normal walker. I had been walking like I was carrying two pints of beer through a pub, desperate not to spill my valuable liquid.

 

The middle plateau was a welcome relief, it was cooler and the odd puff of wind was quite welcome. The rocks of the Canyon were now beginning to get redder as the sun began to lower in the sky. It provided a welcome distraction as I carried on.

 

From around the corner of a rock I could hear an unfamiliar sound, it sounded like hoof beats and to my surprise I was confronted with an ass. Not one ass, but two, a whole line of assess carrying lots of people down to Phantom Ranch where they would stay for the night. I watched them pass and wished I had an ass to take me up to the rim.

 

Then I thought about the awful drops down to the river not two steps from the pass. I barely trusted my own ass, never mind somebody else’s. Time to get my ass out of here.

 

The final rise up to the rim was a grind. I was stopping for rests every ten minutes and my water was all but gone. The heat was now comfortable, but I had very little left in the tank.

 

An elderly couple wandered past me and gave me the encouragement to carry on. For half an hour we walked together and chatted, they were from Arizona and were frequent visitors to the Canyon, they knew all of the sites and talked to me about the geology and history of the place. I felt like a car slipstreaming a lorry to save fuel. Finally half an hour from the top I had to stop and wished them well.

 

I knew now that I was going to make it, but the last half hour was pure murder. Everything ached; I was thirsty and almost out of food.

 

Finally at 6pm I virtually crawled onto the rim and lay down on my motorbike. I felt I had achieved a great deal today, but I was in need of a big meal, lots of tea and a long lie down.

 

Rob and Geoff had invited me over to their tent for some beers but I was in no mood for beers. I was in the mood for sleep. I was gone by 9pm.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday 1^st May

 

After my epic journey I felt no great need to stand with the tourists on the rim, gaze and click at the Grand Canyon. I was up surprisingly early and took one last peak at this majestic sight, just to make sure it hadn’t gone away.

 

My next stop would be Las Vegas. I was kind of interested to see this place; it would make quite a change to the natural beauty of where I had just been.

 

The roads were fairly slow, even on the interstate highway, but I eventually got to the Hover Dam at the head of Lake Mead. The dam is not so wide as high. A small man made continuation of the high natural walls of the parent rock. To look one way over the edge of the dam and hundreds of feet below was sobering enough. To look at the lake behind stretching 50 miles to the east made me even more amazed at the strength of the thing.

 

I got off the dam and carried on. It wasn’t far to Vegas and I had at least $2 I’d like to blow.

 

It was about 6pm when I got to Vegas. My first impression was that is was a bit of a tip. The sort of place seagulls visits regularly.

 

Everywhere you went there were psuedo tourist attractions ‘Elvis slept here’, ‘see Buddy Holly’s car’ and ‘see Abraham Lincoln’s pen’. The sort of thing you’d be mad to pay good money to see. I knew I wasn’t going to ‘get’ Vegas, so I instantly turned on cynical mode to make my stay really enjoyable.

 

I found the AYH easily and found it to be cheap and comfortable. Everything in Las Vegas is cheap apart from the gambling, you always loose. Or so I thought.

 

In my room were four nice Danish guys whom were getting ready for a big night on the table with one arrogant South African who got on everyone’s nerves.

 

I headed downtown on foot, it was easy to find, about sixty gigawatts of light were the tell tale signs. It was quite unreal, thousands of people, lights, glitz, entertainment and razzle-dazzle. Quite a way to get people separated from their cash.

 

This $2 was burning a hole in my pocket so I disappeared into ‘The Golden Nugget’, advertised as the biggest casino in the world. That I could believe, it was huge.

 

I put a quarter into a machine and $5 spewed out. I bought some (cheap) food and found I had over $4 to fritter away over the entire evening I put it all into a machine in the space of three minutes and then tried to find the exit.

 

There didn’t seem to be one, I was in one big social conditioning experiment, I was convinced. Here before me, thousands of fools happily fed machines with quarters out of buckets with barely enough power going on behind their eyes to keep life support going.

 

The machines had more personality than them.

 

I escaped eventually and made my way onto the street. With no more money to spend, I had left it at the hostel as an insurance policy; I was definitely an unwelcome visitor to the city.

 

A load of sports car enthusiasts had parked their cars on the streets and as I paid idle interest to the motors I realised a bloke was paying interest to me, he was following at distance and sizing me up for a mugging so I thought. I had made a few turns without loosing my cool and he was still behind me.

 

I was beginning to worry when two policemen on mountain bikes came riding towards me; complete with standard issue lycra shorts. I was about to get their attention when they took a right turn and disappeared down an alley.

 

The boys in blue and lycra had done the job though and my follower had apparently disappeared. I got myself lost in a few casinos to ensure I had shaken my tail before heading back towards the hostel.

 

On the way back I came across a bar named the British Bulldog, which appeared to do Bass on tap. This I needed, badly. American beer was so bad, it was criminal.

 

Inside the barman served me up with a none too cool ale, which went down very well, I had another and started chatting to the owner who had moved out here 10 years before. He loved Vegas, but had a number of misgivings about the place, some with which I agreed others not.

 

I felt for him in a way as his ‘pub’ was well visited but he still felt like an alien and had few friends.

 

As I finished off my proper pint, I heard two Americans as one of them tired to educate his mate to the splendour of British beer. “This is called ale.” “But it’s warm.” “Yeah, ain’t quite figured that one out yet.”

 

I was residing amongst heathens.

 

I met a chap on the street spreading the Good News. We chatted for a while and he told me how Vegas had been bought out by the mob and was the home to racketeers, swindlers and the laundry of many a drug deal.

 

I wasn’t surprised, I kind of hated the place, especially how it had lost me $2. Still, I had had a bit of food out of it, and found a place with a good pint of Bass. That was worth breaking into my emergency $10 stowed in my back pocket.

 

Back at the hostel it was about 11pm and it was empty. I hit the sack hoping to fall asleep before anyone else got back.

 

An hour later, excited chatter awaked me as the Danish chaps came back in. “Dave, we’ve hit it big!” was their exclamation. They were sat on the floor surrounded by wads of money. They had won over $1000 dollars that night on the blackjack table. Skills.

 

Seeing as they were going to play for the next three nights, I’m sure it would all disappear. I told them to quit whilst they were ahead, but the demons of Las Vegas were in full swing. They would go back.

 

We were all asleep when the South African bloke turned up and kicking things over, swearing in Afrikaner and waking us all up. Two minutes later he was snoring like a tractor. We exchanged glances and spent the night thinking of a place to dump a dead South African.

 

 

Sunday 2^nd May

 

I was so pleased to be leaving this unnatural, inhuman, unbearable place today. I was going to kick the South African in the head as he was still snoring at 9am, but lost the bottle. The Danish chaps were disappointed.

 

Out of Vegas and off towards Death Valley, another must see experience. It was quite amazing. Las Vegas was about 4000ft above sea level and at this time of year, fairly warm. You drop to Death Valley which is 240 ft below sea level, the lowest point in the western hemisphere and boil to death, it was 110⁰F. I was travelling the 80 miles of the valley floor at 70mph in a t-shirt and shorts, yet I was still sweating.

 

The sun scorched valley floor had no life in it, yet as you looked up towards the Sierra mountains

Snow capped mountains could be seen. I imagined an unprepared cowboy dieing of thirst looking up at the snow many years before.

 

In the middle of the canyon was a gas station. Where I stopped to fill up. I went into the shop to pay. It was air conditioned down to 70⁰F. I went back outside to get my fleece of the bike. The temperature difference was too much to take.

 

I was now in California, my last state before I would see the Pacific Ocean. Slowly rising out of the hottest place on earth, I soon reached altitudes of over 7000 feet. I was wearing just about every bit of clothing I had, excluding my dirty underwear.

 

I was not far from the snowline and it often felt bitterly cold. I was in good spirits as I knew that I would get to Yosemite tonight, It was on the top of my must visit list.

 

I finally got to the junction which in 12 miles would bring me to Yosemite. Snow was on the ground and I was very very cold. The road was closed due to unprecedented snowfall this winter. I was rather upset but knew I had to find somewhere to stop. It was way too cold to camp, but fortunately, just 20 miles away lay an AYH, I hoped it would be open. It was hardly tourist season.

 

To my great cheer the hostel at Mammoth Lakes was open and Steve the New Zealand chap looking after it was delighted to see someone.

 

We talked long and watched a few films together. I do like people from New Zealand. They just seem so chilled out, easy going and without any edge on them.

 

I got good nights sleep in; my diversion to get to Yosemite would take me 250 miles and eight hours to complete tomorrow.

 

 

Monday 3^rd May

 

It was well below freezing outside and I knew I would be climbing higher through the passes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So Steve leant me a few newspapers that I stuffed inside my fleece for extra insulation.

 

I rode north for a couple of hours, past Mono Lake and found the first pass west which was open. Higher and higher I got into the Sierras, never breaking the tree line so there was little to see. At one point the road cut through a snowdrift that was 30 feet high.

 

The Sierra Nevada had been awash with snow this winter and was not giving up its grip without a fight.

 

I slowly descended towards warmer climes and eventually did away with my newspaper protection, it had served well, but was now getting a bit wet in the rain and water spray.

 

Nearing Yosemite, I was getting very excited. It was a place I had always wanted to visit after my Dad and Uncle Dennis had been climbing there twelve years ago. The pictures looked amazing and I knew this would be one of the highlights of my trip.

 

 

Turning a corner, I saw a sign to the Yosemite viewpoint. There it was in front of me. A view down the grand valley. On the left was El Capitan, the biggest chunk of exposed granite in the world, twice the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. It rose over 3000 feet from the valley floor. Behind it in the impossibly steep sided valley was the unmistakeable silhouette of Half Dome. I was getting all fidgety excited.

 

Down the road I went, past El Cap and gazed at its awesome splendour. Into Yosemite Village and I started looking for the famed Camp 4 campground. All I could find were campervan berths, a bit too over the top for me and way too expensive.

 

I stopped at an information board and found that Camp 4 had now gone, but instead it was called Sunnyside Campground. I just hoped it would be the same bohemian place my Dad had described inhabited by scruffy climbers and wanderers with bears, coyotes, and foxes trolling about.

 

At the board I met a nice young girl named Erika who was looking for the same place, so we set up camp next to one another.

 

In the years that have passed bears are no longer seen in the valley, but we still had to put our food in steel lockers to keep interested critters from getting fat and all spaced out on food additives.

 

Sunnyside was great, lots of climbers clanking about with all their gear ready to do three-day climbs of the face, originating from all across the globe. The campground was in amongst the trees and had a wonderful relaxed off beat atmosphere. At $2 a night it was a steal and just where I wanted to be.

 

Erika and I cooked some food together and chatted. It turned out she was a climber two so we would do a bit together. She was from Spokane in Washington and it was her first visit to Yosemite too. We sat quiet for a while listening to huge boulders being washed over Yosemite falls and bouncing around in the valley below, it was quite eerie yet fantastic.

 

I had a peaceful nights sleep occasionally awoken by some small animal sniffing around my tent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 4^th May

 

Today we would walk up to the top of the falls which were the third highest in the world, so we were up early and into the village to get some supplies for the trip. After visiting the tourist trap at the bottom of the falls we took the narrow mountain trail up beside the falls.

 

Despite having just had need surgery and wearing a knee brace my companion shot off ahead of me leaving me puffing and wheezing behind. My excuse was I was a ‘plodder,’ built for long distance and not the short race. I was threatened with being left behind a few times so I had to raise my game and eventually, she walked and I crawled to the top of the falls.

 

We had come up 2700 feet vertically and the view across the valley to huge vertical granite cliffs was breathtaking. To my left I could see Lost Arrow Spire. It was a spire that left the 1500-foot cliff at about 700 feet below the top and was a great site for me.

 

A friend of the family and well-known mountaineer Julie Tullis had an epic on the top of the spire over 10 years ago. The only way off was to get over a rope from the spire to the main cliff and as she crossed it an almighty thunderstorm hit, throwing lightning all around the place and giving all in the climbing team the severe willies.

 

Julie had died on K2 in 1986, high up on the mountain, trapped in her tent and dieing from exposure to the altitude. She visited us before she went and I was so in awe of her, not so much of her climbing achievements but her calm self confidence, her acceptance of all and friendliness.

 

My uncle Dennis who had taught me so much about photography and climbing had died a few years later at Arapalies in Australia after being hit by a boulder whilst soloing.

 

And my Dad had died a few years back from cancer. I missed them all, so much more I’d of liked to of known especially as I had come out of my teenage hormone hell years. So much I could of appreciated and learnt.

 

This place had a great impression on all three of them too. The climbing and beauty must have been fantastic enough, but sharing it with friends would have been the best bit.

 

I was about to get all emotional, but Erika had got out lunch consisting of bagels and cream cheese served up with a hunting knife most unbecoming of a young lady. I hope it wasn’t her outside my tent last night. No I’d be all right, I was far too skinny for a pie.  

 

I took a look down the 1400-foot falls and found the rusty safety bar was getting in my way so climbing over it I took a picture looking down the falls. Sense and sensibility then took over. I was leaning over a huge drop, with trees looking like matchsticks at the bottom holding onto a rather rusty bar. Erika’s face was a picture.

 

 

I was getting a bit knock-kneed and slowly made my way back to safety.

 

Coming back down was much easier, because Erika couldn’t go too fast because of her knee. I was silently very grateful. I had time to look around.

 

The wind direction had changed and we were bathed in a cool shower of water spray from the waterfall as Half Dome came into the afternoon sun. To top it all off the waterfall was making a lovely rainbow.

 

We went to the village that evening and after a pizza I was introduced to some Californian cocktails in rather girly glasses. They may have looked girly but after a few, I was rather sozzled. We giggled back to the campground and I fell asleep on a table for an hour or so. Waking up wet with dew I spent the rest of the night freezing in my tent.

 

 

Wednesday 5^th May

 

A chocolate chip muffin hitting me on the head woke me up. I was rather dry mouthed and dull headed. Good morning.

 

We went into the village in Erika’s car. Something like a Ford Escort, but with auto seat belts. You shut the door and the seat belt, attached to the place where it usually plugs in and on a runner on the door slid round and locked. You still had to do the lab belt by hand. I was mystified.

 

We looked around the visitors centre and bought some postcards to mail home.

 

In the afternoon we climbed and bouldered on some of the lower cliffs by the campsite. I was quite getting into it. The rock was superb. I hadn’t realised I had climbed up over 150 feet above the ground on a slab and spent quite some time slowly reversing myself down.

 

We ate at the village again, but this time temperance told me to miss out the cocktails.

 

It was Erika’s last night in Yosemite and we chatted till late in the night watching the ground squirrels and catching sight of the occasional coyote.

 

When Dennis and my Dad were here 12 years ago, you had to hang your food in a tree to stop bears eating it. Now with the ground lockers, it was easier, but the grounds squirrels were constantly mining under them in the hope of coming up below them.

 

One or two lockers had dropped six inches into the ground due to over-mining. Probably with a squashed ground squirrel under there too.

 

 

Thursday 6^th May

 

Erika woke me at 6am to tell me she was going. It was sad to see her go. She had been good humoured, interesting and fun to be with.

 

I was also glad to be on my own for a bit, because the campground was full of other people who all seemed very sociable too.

 

It was raining when I got up so I went back to the village to drink lots of coffee and plan the next part of my trip.

 

I would go to San Francisco and travel up the West coast to Tillamook in Oregon where I would stay with Dan Davy, an exchange teacher who taught me General Studies at College.

 

From there I would go to Seattle to see Will Silva. Will had met my Dad and Dennis in Yosemite back in 1981. He had also visited us at our house a few years after that. I was really looking forward to see Will again and talk about things.

 

Then I would turn east and begin to head back home.

 

That sounded ominous. Home meant, get job, settle back, and settle down. At the moment I was unsettling myself and it felt really good!

 

 

The rain had stopped and I took one of the shuttle buses up the valley and had a wander around the base of Half Dome and Mirror Lake.

 

I just sat and sat thinking, not thinking and soaking up the wonderfully peaceful atmosphere. Worries about home, jobs, etc. just drifted away. To look up the slightly overhanging face of Half Dome kind of put it all into perspective. I had a little touch and decided that I would have to do something similar with El Capitan.

 

I caught the bus back and jumped onto the bike to El Cap. It was now quite warm and sunny. The rock face blinded me; it was like a gigantic beacon. I half made plans to climb it, but first I would need to increase my skills as a climber by a magnitude of 10 or maybe 100. It would be a big outing.

 

Back at the camp I got talking to a Climber from New Zealand, John, who was going to do a roped solo up a 3-day climb.

 

He remembered the irrepressible Dennis Kemp from Arapalies and exclaimed “Jeepers, he could climb, for a pensioner!”

 

The world isn’t too big a place.

 

I became interested in how John would climb his trip and ended up with the question of what to do with ‘waste products?’

 

“Well mate, yer piss over the edge and do sludgies in a paper bag, then chuck ‘erm off. I’ll be aiming for ya!”

 

My question answered in full, he hauled the biggest rucksack I’ve ever seen onto his back and off he clanked. Good luck mate.

 

Tomorrow I would be leaving this place. I didn’t want to, but unless you hiked into the wilderness there wasn’t much more to see and I wasn’t really set up to go on a five-day trek.

 

 

Friday 7^th May.

 

I was breaking camp when I got talking to Jay, a real anti-American American if you get my meaning. He had a conspiracy theory for just about everything, but was always good humoured enough to laugh it off when he had gone into his embittered rant about all that irked him.

 

The journey to San Francisco was fairly uneventful, although getting into the main city was an amazing ride over the huge Oakland Bridge, which crossed San Francisco Bay.

 

Finding the AYH was easy and it was in a fantastic position overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.

 

I had arrived early so I had a ride around the city, up and down those fabled steep streets, I even popped and involuntary wheelie over one hidden Intersection. Man, I felt cool.

 

I got back to the hostel, as the brakes on my bike were about to melt. Did some shopping at Safeway and ended up going out for the evening with a fellow Brit, Pete. It was hard to find a Straights Bar but when we did we had a few beers, ate a bit and headed back.

 

Pete was doing a trip around the USA on an unlimited airfare scheme. He said he was getting so bored of the US Cities as they were all just about the same. Frisco was quite good, we both agreed. It seemed to be quite cultured and relaxed.

 

I told him about the places I had been and he was so wishing he had some form of transport to get to these amazing sites. Public transport in the USA isn’t really too good.

 

We got back to the hostel ten minutes after the nightly barrel of beer had been wheeled out. Everyone was enjoying a glass. We enjoyed looking at an empty barrel of beer.

 

It was quite a noisy night in the hostel.

 

 

Saturday 8^th May

 

I was up early to get away from Frisco, yes it was groovy, but it was another city and I had had quite enough of them. I didn’t want to go to Alcatraz and I didn’t want to take a tour around the gay quarter on a bus.

 

What I wanted to do was to ride over the Golden Gate Bridge on my bike. I got a third of the way across, marvelling at the views; the engineering, the lovely red bridge and my bike ran out of fuel.

 

Big red shiny bridge syndrome (little known) had got hold of me and I hadn’t switched to reserve tank quick enough. I had rolled to a standstill on the bridge and was desperately turning the bike over, hoping expletives would quicken it to fire, which it eventually did and I lurched over the rest of the span as the carbs settled down.

 

That was one spoilt moment. So I rode up onto a headland that looked back towards the bridge and the city behind. It was quite a view. There were a couple having their wedding photos taken and the backdrop was amazing.

 

Back on the road, that happened to be the road that part of Dirty Harry was filmed on I settled down for my trip north. Dirty Harry incidental music played in my head. I took an even bigger bridge to rejoin Route 5, the main Interstate and carried on north.

 

A few hours later I noticed a big black Mustang police car behind me flashing and wailing. My speed wasn’t obscene but it was ticket time. I pulled over.

 

To my immense shock, the trooper had pulled out his gun and was crouching behind his door. I followed his commands to the letter as I was told to get off the bike, hands on the seat and spread my legs. He approached from behind with his gun still on me and I wondered if I was about to roadside raped by the Five O.

 

As he padded me down I told him it was OK because I was from England. “Can’t be too careful son.” He said.

 

After our rather worrying introduction he put his piece away and told me I was doing 70mph when I should have been doing 55mph and the official citation was because speeding was a waste of natural resources. That was a bit rich, because he had left his 5-litre Mustang ticking over. I was going to point out the error of his ways but he had no sense of humour and he had a gun.

 

I got my ticket and was warned to stay steady in California. Off he grumbled in his car. I could of got to New York and back on the gasoline he had wasted during our little chat, but I was so pleased to see he had written down the wrong number for my driving licence.

 

Was I going to pay my $45 dollar fine? Was I buttons. In 30 days from now I would become a fugitive of the state of California. I was quite looking forward to it.

 

I got back on my bike. ‘Dirty Harry’ theme tunes were out. ‘Bad to the Bone’ was in.

 

I was aiming to get to Crater Lake in Oregon and stop there for the night. Crater Lake was an extinct volcano that had blown up and filled with water to make a huge lake. The water was of an eerie green colour from the rock below. It had also been the scene for one of those dire 1950’s science fiction movies where a UFO had crashed into the lake.

 

On I rode catching glimpses of snow-topped volcanoes amongst the huge redwood trees that lined the road. Despite it being California, it wasn’t too warm and I was wearing all my clothes.

 

I turned off the Interstate highway as the sun was setting and began the 50 mile ride to Crater Lake. I rose higher and higher into the Cascade Mountains with nothing but trees on either side of the road. It got colder and colder, snow was on the ground and fewer and fewer cars were to be seen. My tank was beginning to get low and I hadn’t passed by any habitation for the past 10 miles or so.

 

It suddenly struck me that on my atlas of the USA, in wilderness places like this, every one-horse town consisting of two houses and one horse was marked and in Crater Lake National Park, there was nothing marked. I was in the middle of nowhere, heading for an even more desolate place.

 

The light had gone now and things were looking very unfriendly in the solid woods that surrounded me. It was way too cold to camp for the night and I’d be a gibbering wreck by the end of the night if I had to stay out here. I was spooked out.

 

I estimated that the nearest blip on the map indicating human inhabitation was Fort Klamath about 20 miles away. If I rode very easily I might just make it. I was also hoping that the horse might just budge up in the stables for a cold and tired traveller.

 

Five miles of riding later, the bike began to splutter and I switched to reserve tank, I had only ever ridden about 10 miles on reserve before so I was in unexplored territory. It was desperately cold and I hugged the bike to try and keep out of the wind. The road began to rise and twist around, adding more miles and fuel consumption to by journey.

 

At the top of the pass the road took a steady downhill slant so I switched the engine off and freewheeled for a few miles. Lights ahead of me indicated there was a town and kicking the bike back to life I cruised into quite a large place, at least a six-horse town. There in front of me was a motel. I was saved.

 

 It took an hour of warming up by the radiator but I eventually got feeling back into my hands and feet. I watched too much TV after that and went to sleep late.

 

 

Sunday 9^th May

 

 I found no reason to get up early after my trip through the woods the night before. Eventually I did surface to a bright sunny day, it felt good. I found a gas station and filled up to the brim with go-go juice. That would get me back to civilization by the coast.

 

Retracing my steps back up the haunted road I had travelled on last night, I was amazed at what a beautiful place it now looked. It is funny how any place can seem frightening when it is dark, you are cold, tired and fed up.

 

I eventually arrived at Crater Lake at midday. The snowdrifts were 25 feet high around the car park. I was so glad I had not arrived there last night as there was no shelter and it looked as if I would of frozen to death. The public toilets were locked and half buried in snow, so they would have been no use.

 

Climbing up over the snowdrift, the lake was quite a sight. It must have been three miles wide, surrounded by the edge of the extinct volcano, which was covered in trees. The lake was the most vivid cyan I have ever seen contrasting amazingly from the snow, trees and rocks. It is also the deepest lake in the USA, over 2000 feet deep.

 

The snow slope I was on lead down to the waters edge, 50 feet below me. Here I would stay, one slip would see me slide into the lake and join the UFO at the bottom.

 

I was beginning to get cold and lonely again, so onto the bike I jumped and came down out of the Cascades. I found my way onto Route 101, the coast road, and enjoyed the warmth.

 

Time eventually ran out and I camped in a State Forest about 150 miles from Dan’s House at Tillamook.

 

 

Monday 10^th May

 

Some freak of nature had made all the dew in Oregon form on the inside of the tent soaking everything. Not wanting to arrive at the Davy’s house too early I chose to spend the morning down by the sea, write some cards and just relax.

 

The coastline here is very similar to western Scotland, little sandy coves surrounded by large coniferous trees.

 

As my sleeping bag and tent flapped around in the wind, I just sat and looked out to sea, watching gulls, clouds and the breakers of the almighty Pacific Ocean. I was just about as far away from home as I could be, about 7000 miles. Yet I was feeling quite content. My own little world was quite an amazing one at the moment. I had seen some pretty amazing things in the past few weeks.

 

I was so glad I had made the effort to come out west because this is where I had seen the best things and had my best experiences. I was looking forward to seeing people I knew over the next few weeks and not spending so much time travelling. It would be a different way to live once again.

 

Day dreaming over and sleeping bag dry I got back on the bike and took a slow boat north, stopping to look at bays and headlands, big trees and little villages.

 

I arrived in Tillamook around 6pm and found Dan’s house easy enough. I received a splendid welcome and was introduced to his family, Cheryl, his wife, Genevieve and John his kids and Dexter the dog, a rather character full sausage dog. They were a really nice family. We chatted for a long time over dinner and was taught two-player bridge with Cheryl. We watched a bit of TV and I ended up in my new residence, Dan’s Recreational Vehicle, where I had the choice of five different seats.

 

 

Tuesday 11^th May

 

I was awoken early as everyone was going to work and school. Dexter was keeping a close eye on me through the door of the RV. It was only six inches off the ground but provided excellent sausage dog repellent.

 

I eventually surfaced and had a shower. Things were so luxury. Nice soap, warm towels, warm bathroom floor. I even shaved off the beard that had adorned my face for the past month.

 

I went for a leisurely ride down the Three Capes Scenic Route, taking in some of the coastal scenery and huge woodland in the area. Spent lots of time stopping looking and wondering at the wonderful views, huge trees and restless sea. I came back on a bit of a thrash, because with all that weight off the bike it didn’t handle too badly, despite one fork seal being blown and dry of fluid.

 

I called my Mum, so many miles away and it gave me so many thoughts of back home. My Mum sounded slightly worried for me. I tried to reassure her how well I was doing, but she still sounded quite emotional.

 

It was hard to comfort people from 7000 miles away. I knew my Mum was missing my Dad and I so felt for her because in many ways I was feeling it too, but I just didn’t know what to say. The whole conversation put me on the jitters.

 

We had an enjoyable evening chatting and playing cards again but my heart was at home really, I was wondering if this whole trip was too selfish an ambition. I was worried that I wasn’t supporting people by my presence and that I was worrying people to death.

 

 

Wednesday 12^th May

 

I washed all my clothes in Cheryl’s washing machine. It made Doctor Who’s TARDIS look like a moped, but I was very pleased to see the clothes come out cleaner than they went in.

 

I went into the town and bought a second-hand book I also looked around the Tillamook Museum that housed artefacts, from Indian arrowheads to bits of Scud missile. Tillamook was one of the bases that housed gigantic airships that patrolled the US coastline and Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. The ‘Blimps’ were housed in huge hangers which still stand at the redundant airfield.

 

We then took a trip to see Dan’s Mum. Mrs D.

 

Mrs D was one of those quite OTT ladies, very nice, but never shut up. Dan summed it up. “She’s so full of crap!” He whispered under his breath.

 

We had a pizza together and she filled me in with the whole history of Tillamook, especially what Mrs F down the road was doing to her back yard. Oh the scandal!

 

After dinner Dan took me to the boxing club he runs in the town. It all looked a bit painful to me. I did manage to get a wave from a few blokes as I was introduced to them, but then they went on to smash the merry hell out of some other guy or get wiped out themselves.

 

I took the pacifistic way out when asked if I’d like to do a round with one of the guys. I was a coward and if hit just once and it slightly hurt I would cry.

 

I was quite good at holding the bucket for people to spit into though. I had found my place in the boxing world.

 

 

Thursday 13^th May

 

Well, it has been one month since I arrived in the USA and here I am in Oregon. Time has raced by, although some days on the Interstates have ground on for longer.

 

Now I am beginning to think about turning back towards the east coast, it feels strange and I don’t want to think about ending my trip. End it must, but the trip must go on before it can end. That is what I’m going to concentrate on.

 

I was feeling a bit apprehensive about crossing the Rocky Mountains, as they would be much higher than anything encountered yet and more importantly, much colder. As ever, we would cross that bridge or range when we reached it.

 

I visited the local radio station where Dan’s mum does some work; she showed me around and treated me to lunch.

 

The afternoon was spent fiddling about with my bike, and giving it a wash. 7000 miles of grime had to be washed off, but eventually it did, it was all shiny, apart from the rust.

 

 

Friday 14^th May

 

Tillamook’s tourist attractions were beginning to grow a bit thin, but I still had to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory. The town is famous for it’s cheese. So a cheese day it was.

 

After the tour I got to try some Tillamook ice cream, which was much better than the cheese.

 

I rode along the coast north from the town this time and found the scenery nice, but not as impressive as the Three Capes Scenic tour to the south.

 

I pulled up next to a beach as the sun went down and watched the waves coming in. The beaches around here all have lots of dead trees still standing on them. The sea is reclaiming parts of this county.

 

I was waiting for a really good sunset over the sea picture so spent some time cleaning and fiddling with my camera.

 

I had opted to leave my huge F4S professional camera at home and had bought an old Nikomat FTN for £20 to take on my trip. It was a completely manual machine, probably older than me. I had to adapt a few of my old lenses to take the external metering mount, but it had proved it’s worth. Light, not fussed by water and very old looking to cause any mugger great disinterest.

 

Sitting with the warm sunset on my face and constantly re-evaluating the light conditions, I thought there should be some foreground in my picture. Finding a feather, I stuck it in the sand where the sea lapped against it.

 

The feather fluttered and strained as each tide of water hit it. My thoughts turned to the natives of this wonderful land before the white man arrived. How they must of fluttered and strained as the unending tide of the white man arrived in their land and eventually drove them out.

 

I brought the camera down from my eye and the feather had gone.

 

The Red Indians had such a wonderfully correct way of seeing man in the context of the world, part of it, but not running it. It was an attitude we needed in our world now.

 

The sun slowly slid into the Pacific Ocean. I was in a rather deep self searching mode and came to the conclusion that I was in the right place and at the right time, I was learning so much about myself and the world around me. I would look back on this time for the rest of my life.

 

I also felt that my Dad would have been proud of me. So many situations in life, you have your conscience telling you, “my parent’s would kill me if they knew I was here.” I had had a few of those thoughts in my brief existence.

 

I lay back and examined my conscience and it gave me no worries. I could imagine my Dad giving me the thumbs up on this one. I knew my mum was worried about me sometimes, but I was safe. I hadn’t got into any tight situations and I had my big God looking after me.

 

My belief in God had always been a strong influence in my life, without it, I saw no reason for life. There was little point living just for the sake of it.

 

Many times during my trip, I would spend long hours on the bike talking with God. There were plenty of occasions where I would stop, get off the bike and say, ”Wow, you made that?”

 

In times where I found myself lonely or miserable, God was a great strength to me. I was convinced that He wanted me to do this trip, to discover more about the world, me and him.  

 

The sun had slid below the Pacific Ocean, it was getting dark. There was one thing I had to do before I went home.

 

The name Pacific Ocean, conjures up images of surfers, bikini’s and basking sharks, so I had to dip my toes in it to see if it was the warm tropical tootie warmer, I had always thought it was.

 

It was a cold as the sea at Blackpool (with considerably less turd though).

 

I got back on my bike and rode away, dreams shattered.

 

 

 

 

Saturday 15^th May

 

Nobody in the Davy household was at work today so we did a few chores and then Dan and John took me to Cape Meres where we looked for Agates on the beach. These semi precious stones are washed up on the beach quite a lot and we found some. They were like a poor man’s diamond, but much bigger than something you find in a ring, I felt like a prospector.

 

After a drive along the coast and finding out about the place’s history, we stopped off at the Davy property in the woods. It was a huge bit of natural woodland not far from the coast. In many places it was a dense jungle of growth. How wonderful to have your own bit natural woodland. In my own country truly natural woodland is virtually non-existent.

 

It struck me about the differences in lifestyle between our two countries. An average family in the USA would have a nice house, Recreational vehicle, huge woodland property overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Also they would have a huge washing machine.

 

In the UK, the average family would have a nice house, and that’s about it, that’s all your wages could afford.

 

I suppose land in this vast country would be considerably cheaper but the differences were hard to contemplate, even with this thought.

 

To be fair to my own beloved country though, the UK has a much more social outlook, with the National Health Service paying for your health care, National Insurance paying for your pension and a wider helping hand on poverty.

 

I guess the biggest problem my own country faces is the fact it is hugely overcrowded. The USA is 50 times bigger than the UK, yet it only has five times the population. Wilderness isn’t really understood in the UK!

 

 

Sunday 16^th May

 

The whole family and I went to Portland today, it was a one and a half hour drive to the city on the Colombia River, which was spanned by a huge bridge.

 

We ate at an unbranded restaurant, which was a change for me. I asked for a sandwich. I was warned it would be a bit of a huge affair.

 

It arrived on my table, eight inches deep with a skewer through it to keep it together. If you dug deep enough into it I’m sure you’d reach the Cambrian period.

 

We then went to a shopping mall, which in all honesty should have been a state in it’s self. I managed to find a place where I bought a few camping goods and a couple of films for my camera.

 

 

Monday 17^th May

 

Everyone went back to work or school today, so I decided to go to Mount Hood, which was in the Cascade Mountains, beyond Portland. It took three hours to get there, but was well worth the visit.

 

Rising over 12 000 feet, the extinct volcano is a skiing paradise. Its jewel though is Timberline Lodge built halfway up the mountain, by many highly skilled craftsmen during the great depression of the 1930’s to give such workmen a job.

 

The place was fascinating. No stairwell was left adorned by carvings of owls, bears, coyotes or even red Indians. I guess in those desperate days, everyone wanted to make the best job possible and make it last as long a possible. Who could blame them?

 

I walked up the mountain into the snow for a while, there were a few skiers about and surprisingly the snow wasn’t too bad for them. It was mid May and people were skiing. In Europe it was similar conditions to what you would find in mid March.

 

To be fair, there had been an unprecedented amount of snow that year. The lodge was still covered in snow.

 

If it were dark it would look just like it had done in the Stephen King horror film ‘The Shining’ which was filmed there many years ago. It was a good place for such a film; it gave off an air of remoteness. Inside thought, it had no horror thoughts. Warm fires, easy chairs, cheerful people. I would like to stay as a guest I thought, until I saw the tariff. It was rather expensive.

 

Riding back down the mountain was a joy, I wasn’t loaded up and the hairpin bends were a blast. This was until halfway around a corner, fully committed on my lean and speed I hit a stream of ice cold melt water running across the road.

 

Both tyres lost grip and I slid towards the crash barrier that would stop the bike going over the 1000-foot precipice but would throw me nicely over it.

 

At times of extreme panic I must confess that I tend to stop everything and make sure I get a jolly good look at everything that is going on. What I should be doing is to figure out a way to stop the disaster happening and then put it into action. The first way is good for getting free beers in the pub, if you survive. The second is good for surviving. Who knows, you may get a free beer anyway.

 

Paralysed to on the bike, with the throttle still open I slid to the side of the road in a graceful manoeuvre. Within a foot of the crash barrier and an extremely long ‘bird-man,’ the tyres eventually gripped and after a long tank slapper, I carried on my journey until the next lay-by and had an extended breather.

 

At the bottom of the mountain I looked up and estimated that I would of made a good 1500 feet of freefall before returning to mother earth. I had been a close shave. My guardian angel was working overtime.

 

I got back to Tillamook and popped around to see Dan’s mum to say goodbye, tomorrow I would be leaving.

 

It had been really good to stay with the Davy’s. It was nice to get to live with a US family for a week and understand a bit more about the country than just sights and roads.

 

 

Tuesday 18^th May.

 

After saying goodbye to the Davy’s who had been great hosts, I set off to Portland to cross the Colombia River. The bridge over it was an incredible trip, hugging the river for most of the span, and then rising at the far end to create space for ships.

 

Before I dropped in on Will, I wanted to see Mount St. Helens which had blown up 13 years ago, to the day. It was not a time to be superstitious.

 

 

The road to the mountain was full of tourist traffic. I didn’t really want to see this great site and have millions of cameras whizzing in my ears.

 

My first view of the mountain gave me something of a jaw dropping moment. Here was a huge mountain, in a classical conical shape with the top one third blown off it, maybe 2000 feet of mountain, just gone.

 

Dan who lived a good 100 miles away told me what happened when it blew up. Even in Tillamook, the sky turned black, everyone was choking on ash, which settled eight inches deep. The Columbia River silted up in a few days; this is a river half a mile wide.

 

It was an awesome sight. I was standing over five miles away from the mountain and every tree had blown down. They were all still there, very little was growing, the odd small bush or weed. It was still a scene of devastation after all this time.

 

It was also a scientific treasure. Many people have been studying the environment to see how it reacts and copes with this level of destruction and how plants and animals begin to re populate.

 

For this reason there were only a few paths into the area. The whole of the valley below had been filled up with ash, maybe 500 feet deep.

 

Dan had told me another story of some old fellow who had lived in the woods underneath the mountain. He had been told to leave his home as there was much warning of the impending explosion, but he refused to go as ‘he knew the mountain much better than these scientist and I know if she’s gonna blow.’

 

Two days before it blew up, his dog ran away. He managed to catch it and tied it up at his house.

 

The old fellow is still down there, 100 feet below the ash and debris along with his wiser but also dead dog.

 

I had a look around the visitor’s centre. It was fascinating, but full of people, so I took a little walk and sat down to look at the view. Apart from the blown down trees, and weeds, I could have been on the moon.

 

The conservation of our fragile environment has been a constant thought on my trip. Seeing so many impressive sights and also the huge lengths people are going to as to preserve them has awakened a passion in my own blood to see the same happen.

 

The view in front of me gave a chilling reminder of what we are doing to our planet. This was beautiful desolation; human kind is creating industrial, agricultural and living space desolation.

 

I have always thought of conservationists as hippies with beards and sandals. A general view, similar to how anti-conservationists would like to picture them. Forget your Arnie’s, Bruce Willis’ and Tom Cruise’s saving the world. The one who saves it from us will be the ultimate hero.

 

We must do better and do it soon.

 

My little quiet spot on a hillock away from the visitor’s centre was a fine home for the afternoon. I just sat and thought, ate, wrote and read a bit.

 

Eventually, I got up, dusted the ash off my ass and headed to Seattle to see Will.

 

The city seemed a new and vibrant one, indeed it was. Computers and the massive Boeing factory were huge industries in the area.

 

 I finally arrived at Will’s about 8:30pm to find him outside watering some trees. How fine it was to see an old friend, on the other side of the world.

 

I was very impressed with his house, it was made of brick. A rare site in the USA. I got the tour of the house, to find it an excellent bachelor’s pad, clean tidy (unlike my own attempt at domestic bliss) but with bachelor adjustments, such as no need to flush after a pee, wait till it’s a bit more concentrated! Environmentalism and single life seamlessly woven into one. I was going to enjoy my stay!

 

We stayed up till very late chatting and going over where I had been. I had received some post form friends back in the UK, the news was uneventful, but it was so good to hear from home.

 

Will is a middle aged Doctor, originating from New England, but relocated to Seattle to find work and something more of himself. He reminded me of my Uncle Dennis in so many ways, a very socialistic outlook on life, bright eyes echoing great enthusiasm and a thick beard singling him out as somebody interesting to talk to.

 

Will had met my Dad and Dennis in Yosemite, the same campground where I had been staying. No wonder they got on. I knew we enjoy each other’s company.

 

 

Wednesday 19^th May

 

Will was up for work early and the forecast was for rain today so I had a look around the city.

 

Seattle was a really nice place. To me it had none of that oppressive feel that so many of the US cities gave me. The atmosphere was light and breezy, people seemed to have more time to talk and be human.

 

I found my way down to Pine Street, which overlooks the harbour. There was a large open air market there specialising in fresh fish, unloaded a stones throw from the market.

 

It was an extremely sensual experience, the shimmering fish, people dashing about, throwing fish as a show off bartender throws bottles. The smells were sometimes sharp, sometimes smooth. Fishy maybe, but fresh fish, it made all the difference. It was also a noisy place, barrow boys shifting people out of the way, prices screamed around the market. It was quite an experience, a real joy to be around.

 

I walked up to the Space Needle Tower, Seattle’s kind of monument piece of architecture. What can I say; it’s like a big plate on 20 story stilts.

 

Phoning home was nice, I had a good natter with my mum but began to wince at the thought of the collect calls I was making home.

 

After lunch I biked down to the South of the city to visit the Museum of Flight next to the Boeing factory. I spent quite a few hours there looking at lots of different planes, the most memorable being the fastest plane in the world, the Blackbird. It looked more like a spaceship.

 

I had a sit in a F-18 Hornet and spent a long time in the space travel section. I was making plans for my next trip. Maybe not.

 

On the way back ‘home’ it rained on me quite heavily. After getting back, Will told me it rained here more often than the UK. How do they survive? Travel is so good. You soon realise, there are people so worse off than you/ so hotter/ so much colder/ so much wetter. You pride yourself on ‘somehow getting by, despite the harshness of your environment’ yet a bit of wandering will always find people with worse conditions.

 

I never heard anyone in Seattle moaning about the weather!

 

Will and I had a TV dinner, drank Rainier beer (quite good) and watched a 1950’s flick, The Mask of Zorro that seems to be a favourite genre of film for Will. After more talk I went to bed, very tired and read a bit more.

 

 

Thursday 20^th May

 

Today was my bike’s lucky day. Bath and oil change.

 

Out with the yellow pages and trying to find the nearest bike dealer was quite a challenge. I phoned for directions, as I had no map.

 

“Ok yer wanna go 29 blocks south, hang a left, 15 blocks, right onto the freeway, off on north Pacific and were there on the left after two miles.”

 

I put down the phone and tried to find somewhere closer.

 

A few hours later I was on north Pacific and bought some oil, filter and a service tool.

 

Stopping downtown to sample a bit more of the groovy Seattle feel, I was grabbed by a weirdo who told me ‘they’ had a spaceship up there and I was being watched. At first I was worried, was he going to pull a knife on me? But after a while I began to pity him, he was harmless, yet so consumed by his thoughts he felt it necessary to stop complete strangers in the street and warn them of his fears.

 

Saying that, perhaps he pitied me, a little scruffy chap walking along the street with a big tub of bike oil completely oblivious of the cloaked spaceship hanging over our heads plotting the downfall of human kind. I’m not going to say which one of us was right, we all live in our own realities.

 

Back to Wills, nice hose down and scrub. The bike shop had recommended I change the oil on my bike every 2000 miles as it had a design fault making the cams very soft and easily worn. Choco cams were the phrase used.

 

I had already done nearly 8000 miles, so the bike would probably die very soon. As far as I was concerned, if it died in New York, it will have been perfectly engineered.

 

My mind told me the bike lapped up the oil and would remain faithful for the rest of the trip. I needed a bit of encouragement.

 

I chatted with Will that night about a good place to visit; he suggested a trip out east, to see the deserts and through the Cascade Mountains. That I’d do.

 

 

Friday 21^st May

 

Up early to get on my day trip. I took Route 90 out of Seattle and rose into the Cascade Mountains, aptly named, as the rain cascaded down, on my head, down my back, down my pants (both US and UK meaning) and out of my boots.

 

I was sodden, but thanks to Washington State’s rather diverse set up, I found myself in a semi desert quite quickly after the mountains and began to dry quite nicely.

 

I stopped at a dam across a river and found some amazing Indian pictures etched onto rocks. Pictures of me hunting buffalo, idyllic scenes of families with their tents. A board explained the pictures as best it could but couldn’t say who had drawn them or what exactly they meant. The white man eraseth history once again.

 

On through the deserts I went, over the Columbia River to a high plain of agricultural land where I found Dry Falls.

 

Here was a waterfall bigger than Niagara Falls covered in grass, because at the end of the last Ice Age the water was diverted and left the most amazing place to spend you honeymoon if you couldn’t get a bed at Niagara.

 

It wasn’t very popular though; I was the only dude there.

 

I got back to Will’s at about 6pm, thoroughly wet after experiencing the ‘Cascades’ again.

 

I had got some slides of my trip developed and we both had a slide show, Will showing me his latest Alaskan mountaineering trip. We talked much about life, time the universe and everything. It got late and we ran out of Rainier. It was time for bed.

 

 

Saturday 22^nd May

 

Will was going on a pre planned trip to Whistler Mountain in Canada to do some skiing with some friends today, so I would have the place to myself. I was half wishing I could go with him, but I had no kit for skiing and not enough money to warrant hiring it all.

 

Instead I would find my sea legs and take a trip on the many ferries that cross the Puget Sound to the western side of Washington.

 

After much perusal, I left the bike in Seattle and went to Bremerton, a huge naval dockyard on the other side of the sound. I was hoping to see some interesting sites.

 

I saw the USS Ohio, the US’s last battleship as it awaited to be cut up and made into razor blades or inefficient cars. There were other sites, but the best was the USS Turner Joy, 1960’s Destroyer made into a floating museum.

 

It was quite ominous to see nuclear attack procedure notices posted all over the boat. Only six years ago I had been in Moscow and Leningrad to visit my sister. How times had changed since then. Openness, the fall of Communism. Where were we going? And where are all those missiles pointing?

 

Still what could I do about it? Should a missile strike be on its way now, at least I had some instructions.

 

Seeing as I had the house to myself, I ate drank and was merry watching silly films on the box.

 

 

Sunday 23^rd May

 

I had planned for a big trip west to see the rainforest of the Olympic Mountains but was greeted by a rather forbidding sky. I raised two fingers at the sky and went out anyway.

 

I lined up to take the ferry across the Puget Sound and Bikes were allowed on first. This was good. Two other bikers were about to get on the ferry, Jay and Gretchin. Gretchin had just bought a bike, the splitting image of mine. To be fair though it was cleaner, didn’t have rips in the saddle, handlebars not bent, clutch lever intact, the clutch probably didn’t fail when the engine got hot and it didn’t have a million scratches.

 

Otherwise, it looked just like mine.

 

After the ferry ride, they invited me to have breakfast with them as we left the bikes to hopefully make little bikes in the car park.

 

It turned out; Gretchin and Jay both worked in a camera shop in Seattle. Weird. Same bike, same job (once). We had lots to talk about.

 

The clouds had blown away to reveal a wonderful blue sky and we rode together up to a little coastal village which had a rather Norse feel to it.

 

Americans love to tell you they are, Irish Americans, Scottish American, Norse American, Afro American, anything which isn’t American American. Poor loves haven’t got enough history to have a national identity, so they have to borrow what they can.

 

Personally, I wouldn’t get too hung up about it. Looking at the USA’s meteoric rise to number one nation of the world in a little over 200 years, I would just make that my identity.

 

Anyway, here was a village settled by a bunch of Norwegians who have held onto their past tenaciously, erecting totem poles, flags flying from every house and supplying cuisine which looks Scandinavian to all and sundry. It was quite bizarre.

 

To be fair the landscape looked very fjord like. It reminded me of the few memories I had of visiting Norway in my youth. Most vividly I remembered visiting the longboat of Torvin the Skull Splitter. Now that was a holiday!

 

Eventually we went our separate ways, I was heading for the Olympic peninsula. Traffic was bad, so I ended up riding like a crazy man to get there and back before the ferries stopped running.

 

I ended up at the Hoe River national park. I was here to see Washington’s temperate rainforests. All around were huge trees with hair like mosses hanging from the branches. The smell was so fresh it was quite an experience. Dappled light shone through the trees into the unspoilt rainforest and I found myself lost amongst the forest.

 

Just sitting still and hearing streams running, birds singing and looking at the trees gave me a wonderful sense of well being. My thoughts ran away from me and eventually coming too, I realised I had to make tracks back towards Seattle before I became stranded. It would have been nice to stay in the rainforest for a night, though; I should have taken my camping gear.

 

Washington State is the most amazing place. First you have the coastline, then the rainforests, snow-capped mountains, the Puget Sound, Seattle, the Cascade Mountains, then some desert finally arriving at agricultural land on the eastern side. All in one state. No wonder Will moved out here.

 

Back on the bike, I completely spoilt my serenity and peace in a 90-mile dash to get back to the ferry, how easy to lose a great feeling. I was feeling guilty about it. All this racing around was making the rainforest work harder to swallow up all of my Carbon Dioxide!

 

I caught the last ferry and had another amazing moment as the jam-packed ferry chugged along. I was looking at the skyscrapers of Seattle and there behind, maybe sixty miles away was the awe-inspiring sight of Mount Rainer, bathed in the warm glow of the Pacific sunset. Rainer is a 14 000 foot extinct volcano of perfect proportions capped with snow and looking thoroughly majestic.

 

 

Feeling quite pleased with the things I had seen that day I ambled back to the house. All loved up with nature, I managed to hit a monstrous oil slick at an intersection and my rear wheel came spinning out threatening to overtake me. I hung onto the throttle and pulled it back in like a true pro and left a huge black line down the road, complete with smoke and lots of noise. I felt like a GP super star.

 

It had been a truly wonderful day.

 

 

Monday 24^th May

 

Mum called in the morning and it was good to catch up on what was happening at home. Due to Seattle being 8 hours behind the UK, there aren’t many reasonable hours to contact home, but it was so good to speak to my family, especially Helen, my sister, whom I had missed on my last two calls.

 

It was time for a day trip to another country, so I headed north and came to Canada. It was slightly weird, as in the immigration department, there was a picture of  ‘er majesty, the Queen. You could tell they weren’t that fond of her in Canada as the picture was obviously 30 years out of date. God bless the Queen.

 

On to Vancouver, where I wanted to see if the Canadians were just like the Yanks or whether there was a noticeable difference.

 

Well Vancouver was nice, lots of tower blocks, a classy feel I must say. But quite spookily, there was no one about. Everything was closed. There were a few people on the streets, but perhaps a warning sign had been put up a few hours ago stating ‘Dave’s coming, run for the hills’!

 

Perhaps it was a bank holiday or national Canada Day, or lets abandon a city day.

 

I rode around for an hour or so looking for the party, but didn’t find it so I went back to Will’s. Another 30- mile day trip, I must stop them, it’s beginning to hurt.

 

 

 

Tuesday 25^th May

 

I had it in my mind today to go and see Mount Rainer, but I knew I’d be to disorganised and plainly too tired to do it make the long journey, so I went to pick up some developed pics and buy some film at the shop where Jay and Gretchin worked at.

 

As I got outside, it began to rain and that told me to go and be all domesticated at Will’s house, so I did some washing, read a bit and got a bit of sleep in.

 

Will came home from work and we ended up on an all-evening chat, as I was to leave tomorrow, it was really fun. We left no stone unturned and set the world well and truly to rights.

 

Will decided to have a go on my bike, as he had not ridden for a long time. He was impressed with my little bike. I guess he could be forgiven that seeing as he had only ever experienced a BMW from 20 years before!

 

The bike has aged since NYC. The seat is quite ripped now, rust all over and lots of dents. I had also snapped the clutch lever not long out of Washington DC and changing gear was quite hard work. Saying that I either straight shifted or was in 6^th for most of the day, so I didn’t notice it too much unless I was off the interstates.

 

Just before I went to bed Will pulled out an envelope from the draw and telling me he was a rich doctor and I was a poor traveller, and he was so impressed with what I was doing, he thought I might like this. It was $100 and I was so humbled by it, pleased too, as money was wearing thin!

 

Will had been a wonderful host and I think we had enjoyed each other’s company a lot. Seattle and Washington had been a really interesting place to stay. I would miss it.

 

 

Wednesday 26^th May

 

This was it; I was on my way back home. Riding up into the Cascade Mountains, where it was indeed cascading down, I turned back to look at the Pacific Ocean fro the last time.

 

I had no clear plans as where to go on my trip back to NYC through the north of the country. I wanted to visit Yellowstone National Park, maybe Niagara Falls and that was about it. I was open to suggestions anywhere in between there.

 

Will had given me address of some friends of his in Vermont. I would defiantly drop in on them, as I was interested in a visit to New England.

 

There would be a lot of in-betweens too. It was over 3500 miles to New York. My first stop would be Yellowstone and I was looking forward to seeing it.

 

After getting over the Cascades, I began to dry out and hit Spokane by lunchtime. I liked Spokane. It was just such a cool name for a city.

 

I passed through Idaho and into Montana, which was a wonderful sight of forests, little towns and farmland.

 

I arrived at Missoula at about 5pm where I found the Youth Hostel and settled in. It was quite a groovy place, with lots of people in it from all nations.

 

After eating I went out with Neil a chap form Leeds and Conny from Germany. We had quite a few beers and managed to win a stack of money on the poker machine, which we drank and staggered back to the hostel. We all slept well.

 

 

 

Thursday 27^th May

 

We were all moving about fairly slowly in the morning. Neil’s Yorkshire sense of humour hadn’t left him as he had put me down for every job on the chores board. All I could do was to try and run him over with my bike on the car park.

 

It would be another long trip to Yellowstone and the wind was very strong, threatening to blow me under huge 18 wheel Kenwood trucks. Everything in the USA is so macho, especially when it comes to automobiles. Lorries out here run on petrol and only do about one or two miles to the gallon.

 

Got into Yellowstone and found a good cheap campsite at Norris that was centrally placed in the park. There were lots of people camping, many foreigners like myself and we spent quite some time chatting.

 

The campsite is right next to a flooded river. It is very beautiful; Elk and Buffalo wander about, grazing next to the tents. I hope they see my tent and don’t step on it, especially when I am in it.

 

I took a ride to see the Yellowstone Grand Canyon, which was still full of snow. Then I stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin. As the sun went down it looked like the gateway to hell. Steam rose from hissing holes, bubbling pools of sulphurous gunge spat into the air every now and again and the smell was like a farmer’s cesspit. It was very smelly but fun to watch.

 

I was getting Yosemite feelings again and watched the pools by myself till way after sunset. I knew I was going to enjoy myself at Yellowstone.

 

 

Friday 28^th May

 

Tomorrow would see the start of the equivalent of a bank holiday in the USA, so I decided to see some of the touristy things today before the crowds arrived.

 

My first stop was Paint Pot Hot Springs, which was like a water fun park with no one in it having fun. To be fair though, if you had got in it, it would of burnt your arse off. Lots of more bubbling, spouting and delicious smells. This really is a multi sensory place.

 

The on to Old Faithful who faithfully erupts every one and a half hours. You could tell it was a major attraction as there were benches for everyone to sit on and watch the geyser spout.

 

It was well worth waiting for as the two hundred foot plume of water was quite a sight. All around billions of cameras clicked and whirred.

 

Tourists were beginning to get on my nerves so I took a trip to Lake Yellowstone, half filled with icebergs and looking rather spectacular. It is so high up here, the campsite is at 8000 feet and therefore, very cold at night.

 

Stopped off at a mud volcano on my way back and was suitably impressed by an astounding smell, together with lots of mud flying and farty noises. I love this place. You wouldn’t want to get too close thought, as the mud volcano was made up off 50% sulphuric acid.

 

 

At Canyon, I bought some food and groceries. Setting off to the campsite, I got rained on big style and arrived wet and cold. Things were looking up though as I hadn’t had a cup of tea with milk since Texas, and now I was armed and ready to drink.

 

A couple, Steve and Debbie from Missoula, where I had stopped a few days ago had camped by me. They invited me to warm my damp body next to their fire and I heartily took up their offer.

 

We ended up chatting late into the night. Steve told me how he hunted Elk and it gave me a great appreciation of how people live out here. He would hunt an animal for hours, shoot it, butcher it into carry able pieces then walk it back to his truck, maybe two or three miles away. The whole thing could take 14 hours but he would have meat for all winter. I was impressed.

 

I have always been dead set against the idea of freely available guns but in this context you could see the need for guns and their real use. I guess I was still in the Wild West.

 

We chatted on under the stars, talked about our homes and the beauty of the place we were in and then decided to go to bed. It was really cold.

 

 

Saturday 29^th May

 

It had been a cold night and I woke up very early. I dozed for a while and eventually got up to go to Mammoth Springs where hot limestone laden water runs down the side of a hill and forms two tons of new rock every day. The patens were superb, but I was getting fed up of hearing low intelligence comments from my fellow onlookers.

 

I decided to leave it all behind and head up one of the many mountains in the park. Bunsen Mountain wasn’t very high, but it promised some lovely views so off I strode.

 

Walking in the wilderness can bring you to many unexpected pleasures and dangers. I was advised to whistle and make plenty of noise as I walked so I would not startle any bears that would then proceed to kill me big style.

 

Whistling might have been a safe option, but it sure did annoy me after a few minutes. It kind of spoilt the tranquillity of the place too, so I took to swiping at the undergrowth with a stick every now and again.

 

As I got higher there was plenty of snow on the ground that was quite steep in parts. Close to the top I had to kick footholds in the hard snow, coming down would be fun.

 

The view was fantastic; I could see most of the park, Lake Yellowstone and even the campsite. It was a shame there were a few trees blocking the view. In the UK trees tend to be very very sparse and thin above 2000 feet, but here forests were quite happily growing at 9000 feet.

 

A spot of rain turned my head to see a huge black cloud racing towards me. I took shelter behind a small hut near the summit and sat out the storm that belched rain, hail and lightning in copious amounts.

 

I wasn’t alone though. A tiny chipmunk that could move at incredible speed came to join me. He was quite interested in me and had a good sniff at my rucksack and finally jumped on my boot. There he stayed eying me up till I moved slightly and he shot off like someone had taken a rifle to him. It was a rather funny experience.

 

The rain subsided and I left my shelter. I slid down the snow slopes which were the perfect consistency to allow you to use your boots as skis. It was great fun and I was soon down the mountain.

 

Back at the campsite, Steve and Debbie asked me if I wanted to go with them to get some firewood and look at some of the ‘critters.’ Steve being a hunter had a fantastically keen eye for spotting hidden animals. We ended up stalking a Moose and managed to get quite close before it spotted us and ran off.

 

I was invited over to dine with them in the evening. It was hard to decide what to do. 3-minute noodles by myself, or Elk steak marinated in home made sauce cooked on an open fire. I was over there like a shot.

 

It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had, quite delicious. We talked and talked into the evening, Steve was very interested in British history and I tried to fill in some of the blanks for him, although to be honest, most of the time it was the blind leading the blind.

 

We spent some time looking at the stars. With such little light pollution the sky was alive with light. There was very little black out there. The fire began to burn down so we got off to bed, well after midnight again.

 

 

Saturday 30^th May

 

I wasn’t up early again, Steve and Debbie would be up at daybreak to drive around and look at the ‘critters.’ I may have been sleeping on the floor in the semi open, but I still liked my lie ins after a late night.

 

Today I would climb Mount Washburn, the highest mountain in Yellowstone. I set off feeling quite tired but was soon walking with a spring in my step as I gazed at the views, the trees and wildlife. It was easy walking and I soon began to forget being noisy. I rounded a corner and 20 feet in front of me was a small brown creature, whose bum was facing me. From this angle it could well of been a bear cub.

 

The guidebooks had warned of getting in between a bear and it’s cub as it was a certain way to get your arm pulled off and eaten. And that would just be the first course.

 

I slowly looked around waiting for momma to charge at me. Fortunately I saw nothing and upon close inspection the creature was a marmot. It was snuffling about in the ground and wasn’t bothered by my presence.

 

On I went, remembering to make a bit more noise this time. The trees began to thin out and the snow began to get deeper. Soon I was treading lightly on a thin crust of snow. Every now and again I would crash through it up to my thighs and have to engage in a bit of full body climbing. It was exhausting.

 

I met up with a woman called Katherine who was also doing a bit of swimming in the snow as we approached the top of the mountain. Not only was the walking and climbing difficult, the air was very thin, so you may get 10 feet and then stop for a rest.

 

Finally we got to the top and I was dismayed to find a huge observation building there with a service road leading up the other side of the mountain. It kind of destroyed the satisfaction of reaching the top when you could of just driven up the other side.

 

This was the highest I had ever climbed under my own steam, 10 600 feet and the views were tremendous. 50 miles in all directions, I could see the Grand Tetons National Park to the south which had some fantastic pinnacle shaped mountains too them.

 

After lunching on the top of the mountain, I headed back the way I had came. Another slide down the mountain was lots of fun, but I was soon covered in snow, it was down my boots, in my pants, up my shirt, everywhere.

 

Back at the campsite, I joined Steve and Debbie again for huge bacon and beef burgers cooked over the fire once again. I was in dire need of drying out so I stayed close to the fire.

 

 

Monday 31^st May

 

I was awoken by the sound of snorting and grass tearing. I put on my glasses and peaked out of my tent. Two feet away from me a buffalo was chomping on his breakfast and gave me a hard stare.

 

It was a tense lie in as I heard the creature moving around my tent. Looking over to Steve and Debbie’s tent, I could see Steve, hopping around desperate for a pee, unable to get out of his tent due to a buffalo just outside his door. I gave him a canny thumb up and waited for the herd to finish their breakfast and move away.

 

I wasn’t in the mood for much travelling today so I just got the fire going again and tired to dry out my boots. Steve and Debbie packed up to go home in the afternoon. Steve showed me his .357 Magnum which was so heavy, I could barely lift it. He was telling me that city folk come out into the wilderness with their little pop guns and If they get attacked by bears they try to shoot them and the bullets just bounce of the bear’s skull, making it even madder.

 

His .357 would make a big hole in a bear. I felt a touch uncomfortable with this ‘thing.’ But I could see what he means.

 

It was sad to see them go, I had become quite fond of them and now the campsite seemed quite boring. Still I had the fire going well and was joined with a French chap. We chatted for some time.

 

Looking at the money I had only enough for two or three weeks, so I decided I would race across the north and spend a bit of time in New England, where I would be close to New York should the money run out all of a sudden. I would have liked to have gone down to the Grand Tetons, but I decided against it. I would put a few 500 or 600 mile days in and see where it got me.

 

 

Tuesday 1^st June

 

Out of Yellowstone at the east exit and higher into the Rockies. It was very cold, but I carried on knowing I would soon descend into the plains of Wyoming. The descent was rapid, down through crumbling sandstone canyons and soon I was warm again.

 

The weather was threatening and the countryside bleak and uninviting, just flat semi desert with no signs of habitation for miles and miles. It was real cowboy and Injun’ country.

 

I could see a thunderstorm closing in on me on my right flank so I rode at 100mph plus to try and escape it. In the end it caught up with me and subjected me to a good soaking.

 

After a few hours I was thoroughly miserable. I was cold and wet, lightening struck close to the road a number of times and I was still hundreds of miles form Rapid City where I would stay the night. The bleak scenery didn’t help my mood either.

 

As Rapid City approached I plunged into thick pea soup fog to lighten my mood. I found the Youth Hostel and crashed out. I had ridden for 10 hours and 6 hours of rain and fog had really put me to the test. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. I was a bit down.

 

 

Wednesday 2^nd June

 

The old chap in the bed next to me said he was from Venezuela, but he had a German accent. I decided he must be a Nazi war criminal who escaped the Nuremberg Trials.

 

Outside it was still raining and foggy. My mood had lightened and I was to go and see Mount Rushmore, with the faces of the US Presidents carved in it. It was fantastic. I looked into a cloud and saw nothing at all.

 

From there I went to see the Crazy Horse monument, which is being built at the moment. This was spectacular, just the face of Crazy Horse is six stories high.

 

Sightseeing seemed like a bad idea so I just got my head down and headed east. I wanted to see The Badlands, but knew I’d see nothing in this weather. Eastwards I rode soaked to the skin on Route 90.

 

By lunchtime the rain stopped and the further I went the better the weather became. South Dakota was very boring, Billiard table flat farmland with the old house here and there. Its one claim to fame was the film Dances with Wolves was filmed here. Every second house seemed to be selling props from the film.

 

Filled with the joys of South Dakota, I stopped at a Motel and booked in spending a good hour in front of the heater trying to get warm.

 

I dined in a typical US transport café; complete with busty waitress, chewing gum and more lipstick that Joan Collins. I had a buffalo burger, which was quite nice considering the place.

 

I watched lots of trashy films on the TV and soon fell asleep.

 

 

Thursday 3^rd June

 

I was up early as rain was expected but thankfully it didn’t come. It was, however, very windy. The headwind made for uncomfortable riding, but it did dry my boots out as they flapped about in the wind tied onto the bike.

 

The countryside is noticeably greener as I got into Minnesota and it was noticeably warmer for which I was very thankful. I got to Minneapolis late afternoon and booked into the AYH. After travelling 1400 miles in three days most of it in the rain I needed to have a break so I booked in for two nights. I had my own room and sheets on a bed; it was really good. I was well pleased.

 

I took a walk around the city and found it to be very agreeable, the buildings were classical, no one seemed in a mad hurry and it felt a nice relaxed place.

 

I bought some ‘Pigs Ear’ beer that was surprisingly good to drink and spent the evening reading in my comfortable room.

 

 

Friday 4^th June

 

I wanted a relaxing day, so headed downtown for a bit of a walk around. I ended up watching the new Stallone film ‘Cliffhanger’ at the movies. It bent the laws of good acting and completely shattered the laws of physics and gravity. Still it was watch able and it was filmed in the Dolomites in Italy, and the scenery was fantastic.

 

Upon returning to my bike I found two tickets on it; more souvenirs. I headed back to the hostel mid afternoon, had a little snooze and began to get my head around where I was to go next. There was nothing in between here and Vermont that I wanted to see apart from Niagara Falls, so I planned to go to Milwaukee, mainly because it had a cool name, Chicago, because I surmised I ought to and a place called Lake George in upstate New York because it had an A rated youth hostel.

 

That was the plan and that was how I would do it.

 

I just slothed about in my little room for the rest of the day, wrote a few cards and read for a while. I broke open the rest of the Pig’s Ear and fell asleep very early; today was the rest I needed for mind and body.

 

 

Saturday 5^th June

 

Up early and feeling fresh I took the relatively short journey to Milwaukee, a mere 330 miles. The ride was through rather boring agricultural land, but it was nice and green with brightly coloured barns dotted about the place.

 

On one of the roads a sign warned that aerial policing policed the road. It made me wonder what would happen if an aeroplane found me to be speeding. Would they land and give me a ticket?

 

As I was doing 80 mph on a 55 mph road I decided to take a look for some airborne five-o. As I leaned back scanning the sky the wind got under my visor and blew my head straight back. I was now gripping onto my bike with my thighs with fingers just touching the handlebars, enough to roll the throttle on, propelling me faster and faster.

 

I strained to get back upright and when I did I was doing well over 100 mph in the gutter by the side of the road. I decided to slow down a bit after that.

 

Milwaukee struck me as quite a groovy city, free and easy with it’s own identity, which was nice to see. Saying that, it was the home of the Fonz!

 

I booked into the AYH that was quite a way from the city centre, however it was a converted barn and had lots of character.

 

I met two Brits in the hostel, Mark from Essex and Simon from Edinburgh who was doing something similar to me, but on a Harley. It was a lovely pose machine, but too big and expensive for a little guy like me.

 

Simon was surprised to see me here. Apparently it was Easy Rider’s 10^th anniversary and Harley-Davidson’s 90^th anniversary. Harleys are made in Milwaukee and over 100 000 Harley bikers would descend on the city for the weekend for the party. I guess a Honda rider wouldn’t be welcome. Well here I was and that was that.

 

It was easy to be all hard sounding to fellow Brits.

 

Mark suggested we take a ride into town and go to a Steve Miller Band Concert. So we did. It was weird having two on the bike, but I soon got used to it. Everywhere we went, hard stares followed us from Harley riders, who were almost exclusively, overweight, bald headed, white, male and wearing shades. Tattoo were a big thing too.

 

Downtown we went to the Miller beer festival. The city has a festival every week and Miller beer, being Milwaukee’s second most famous export had quite a few festivals in the year. We had a few beers and laughs. Mark had a rather sarcastic sense of humour that I found to be a bit close to the bone, but it was very funny. Where it went straight over the heads of Americans he would find himself black and blue back in our home country.

 

I would never dare go up to a 20 stone Harley nut looking really aggressive and say. “That’s the shiniest bike I’ve ever seen, I bet you have to shine your bike all the time. Do you have to rub really hard?”

 

He managed to say it with the straightest face and displayed real interest when they gave him all their shining techniques. When we got back to the beer tent we fell about the place laughing.

 

On to the Steve Miller Band Concert. It was in a huge arena and I really enjoyed the music, some of it I knew, The Joker, Abracadabra and a few others. It was rather cool to think; here I am at a Steve Miller Band concert, in an open-air arena, in Milwaukee. I guess you had to be there.

 

Leaving the concert at about 11pm was fun; the place was alive with Harley boys cruising the streets and found it necessary to shout abuse at us for riding a Japanese bike. I couldn’t see the point of shouting, “buy American” to two British blokes.

 

Mark suggested we go to a nightclub. It seemed a good idea at the time so we did. The place was owned by an ex cop who had arrested the local serial killer many years ago. It was on the seedier side of rough and decorated with police car fenders and doors, handcuffs and lots of police mug shots. I could only imagine my bike was being smashed to bits in the car park by lots of patriotic meatheads. Whatever might be happening in the car park, I decided to stay in the nightclub.

 

Danger still lurked inside as Mark was now well inebriated and his mouth was more dangerous than a bottle of nitro glycerine at a Nirvana concert.

 

We got chatting to the barmaid, whom Mark, due to his beer goggles, instantly fell in love with. Amazed that we had come to Milwaukee by choice, she asked us how we were getting around. She soon began to ignore Mark, as I was biking around the USA and he was just taking the bus. She asked me what I was riding. When I told her it was a Honda 650 Nighthawk she decided I wasn’t quite as cool as I might be and went to clean some glasses.

 

We had a giggle about that.

 

It was one in the morning and I insisted we went back to the hostel. By a stroke of luck, my bike was in one piece, but it was looking like it wouldn’t stay that way as I had a bloke who had consumed about 10 pints swaying around on the back of it.

 

We got two blocks away from the club and waiting at some traffic lights we were surrounded by six arch typical Harley boys who gave us the usual Harley Davidson sales pitch. “Buy American you Sons of Bitches.” Mark said something, all I heard was something about being fat, and I saw Mr. Testosterone’s eyes go all sort of mean looking.

 

Without waiting for the lights to change I took off and was followed by a lot of noise. Mark was laughing his socks off and I could see him giving the V’s to the group chasing us. I was livid, I thought about pushing Mr. Big Gob off the back and leaving him to tell the mob how terribly sorry he was.

 

I decided to keep my pillion for the time being, but I screamed at him to hold on and took some quick right turns and gave it all it had. I knew Harleys were slow, but surely not that slow. Despite having engines twice the size of mine they became spots in the distance fairly quickly. Harleys were definitely overrated. Saying that, they were having to haul huge amounts of lard about so maybe they could be forgiven.

 

Back at the hostel, I parked the bike around the back, slapped Mark on the back as he leant against a drain pipe moaning about feeling ill and went to bed.

 

 

Sunday 6^th June

 

Another night of listening to snoring, but I felt surprisingly fresh and gave Mark a lift in to see the Milwaukee 200, an Indy circuit race. Flying the flag for the UK would be Nigel Mansell, go on son. He’d have been proud of me the night before.

 

The whole of the city was full of Hogs and noise and Indy fans. I left the crowds and rode by the shores of Lake Michigan. It was really more like a sea; there was a beach, ice cream van and shop selling beach things. More than anything, it was quiet and I relaxed in the park, reading and sunning myself. It is really turning into t-shirt weather, summer is here.

 

At the hostel, I chatted with Simon who was riding a Harley on a similar kind of trip to myself. It turns out we passed each other and waved on June 1^st in Wyoming. He was making a video diary and showed me some footage. We chatted about bikes and riding for ages. I would of liked to do it the way he was doing it but, considering I’d need another $10 000 just for a Harley, and seeing as they were rubbish, I was kind of glad I was doing it my way!

 

Monday 7^th June

 

I was glad to get out of Milwaukee; all those Harley boys were like a travelling lynch mob. Good job they moved so slowly.

 

The plan was to get to Chicago and spend some time there. When I got there, I was overwhelmed by the big city; it was cold, windy and raining. The buildings were so tall and it made me feel very insignificant. I was going through my second phase of countryside longing. The AYH was closed when I got there and wouldn’t open for another four hours so I decided to ditch Chicago. It had had its chance and blown it. I would carry on west and see what Detroit had in store.

 

On the way out of the city I got stuck in a monstrous traffic jam. Then a titanic thunderstorm hit and I got humongous wet. I eventually crawled into a McDonalds to take shelter and made a diet coke last one hour. Out of the window I could see the Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world sticking out of the top of the clouds. This was a strange place and I didn’t really like it, people were so impatient and horn-honky.

 

The rain began to clear and I joined the still crowded roads. Every now and again you would reach a bit of highway, sometimes 12 inches deep in water with cars conked out all over the place.

 

I managed 60 miles of very unpleasant riding before I found a motel and booked in for the night. I was soaked.

 

 

Tuesday 8^th June

 

Just as I was about to leave the motel, all warm and dry, it began to rain. I really felt like throwing my helmet. More thunder and wetness. I had my breakfast under a freeway bridge which was particularly miserable. The ride was wet and cold but over fairly quickly as I was soon in Detroit, home of Motown, the American car industry and by the looks of it the drive-by-shooting.

 

What a dump. I found the AYH, booked in and went for a little look around. This place was seriously depressing. Just about everyone looked like a drug pusher or user. I soon got back to the AYH where I decided I would stay for the evening as outside looked just too dangerous.

 

Everywhere was run down, nobody made eye contact, and rubbish blew about in the street. Perhaps I was at the bum end of Detroit, but it certainly left its mark in me.

 

I read for a while in the empty hostel and was joined later by and Aussie and Pommie and after a chat all agreed that this city was the pits. It must be a very hard place to live in. My clothes were drying out nicely on the radiators and we chatted until late.

 

 

Wednesday 9^th June

 

I was out of Beirut just as quickly as I could and into Canada to make my way to Niagara. Travelling in Canada is much quicker than the USA as everything was signposted in Kilometres, which go by so much quicker than miles. The roads were nice, travelling through idyllic farmland with brightly painted farms and luscious greenery. The weather was bright and sunny which really lifted my spirits.

 

Soon I was looking over Niagara Falls, a sight I had been looking forward to see for some time, but somehow, I wasn’t that impressed. Perhaps I had seen it too often in films or documentaries. I think that maybe I had seen so many amazing sights, that this one was just another sight. Perhaps it was that all of the water made me want to go and have a pee.

 

I had been told that the Youth Hostel on the Canadian side was much better than the one on the US side so I stayed in Canada and indeed it was quite a hoot of a place.

 

I got kind of press ganged into the wild living group in the hostel. Because I had a bike, they thought I was bad to the bone.

 

There were the Aussies, Julie-Anne, Glenn and X, whose name escapes me but is defiantly worth a mention, read on. Then there was Willie the Kiwi and Dave 2 the other Pommie.

 

No drinking was allowed in the hostel, so we had to hide Willie’s bottle of Jack Daniels and mix it with coke. After that aperitif we went out to a bar where Aussie-Pommie rivalry became the in-joke. We degraded into vulgarly doing down each other’s country until the barmaid, thinking a fight was about to erupt told us she was going to call the police.

 

Seeing as we were in Canada, I was hoping they might understand a proper sense of humour; but it didn’t look that way.

 

When we got back to the hostel, the lady running it was standing guard at the front door to stop more booze entering the inner sanctum. We hatched a cunning plan. Everyone would go in except X and I, who would get the three bottles of Bundie Rum out of X’s car. We would then scale the large well-built garden fence with the bootie and continue the party in the back garden.

 

X was staggering a bit but told me, “see that fence mate, I’m gonna run straight through it.”  I looked at the fence and then looked at him. I should have dissuaded him, it would really hurt, but I just gave him the thumbs up after taking the bottles off him.

 

He gave it a good run up and launched himself at the fence. I think he used his nose as the main thrust of his attack and smashed into the fence with a deafening thud. It wobbled a bit but certainly repulsed the attacker, quite comfortably.

 

X was lying down when I got to him, clutching his nose and gently sobbing.  Four heads slowly appeared over the fence to see what had happened. They didn’t seem too surprised. Perhaps he did these things quite often?

 

We eventually got over the fence and continued with our party and all ended up in quite a state. The conversation went from funny to just plain weird.

 

We got to bed late and as soon as Willie’s head hit the pillow he began to snore at thermo-nuclear warhead detonation noise level. It didn’t really induce “Happy Hostelling” feelings amongst us.

 

X got up and told us he was going to sleep with Julie-Anne. With a wink and a glint in his eye he went down to the girl’s dorm. A minute later he was back, minus the glint in his eye, just in time to see Glenn kick Willie for the first time of many during the night. The snoring stopped for a minute, but was soon back to haunt up.

 

 

Thursday 10^th June

 

Rebuked Willie sharply for his audio active sleeping habits. All he could say was, “oh sorry mate, I couldn’t hear a thing.”

 

I took a ride to see Toronto, It seemed a really nice place, much less threatening than any American city but quite dull in a strange kind of way. The place seemed very well ordered and neat.

 

The CN tower was quite a sight. It was huge, the tallest free standing structure in the world. I seemed quite silly though to build it. You could of built a restaurant on the ground rather than 150 stories up. When it was windy they had to close the restaurant as the top oscillates six metres.

 

I headed back and wrote some cards on the way. I handed in my membership card of the wild living group by not going out for another night on the town with them and got an early night after writing a few postcards.

 

 

Friday 11th June

 

I breakfasted on six chip ahoy cookies. I have been living so well.

 

I headed east on an expensive toll road into upstate New York. Most of it was forested and after a few hours I felt like one of the Ewoks off Return of the Jedi. The forest seemed continuous, rarely opening out for just a few minutes.

 

I was heading to Lake George where there was an AYH. All around me there were plenty of motorcycles riding about and upon getting into to Lake George, I found Americade ’93 was on, an all biker bike event was held here every year. That was a stroke of coincidence. Everywhere you looked shiny bikes were being ridden about or parked up for all to admire. My bike was rather out of place, dirty, splattered with mud and about 6000 miles of grime.

 

I was the one real biker there.

 

I booked into the AYH which was full of bikers and took a walk around the town. The main street was lined with Harleys, Hondas, Kwacks, Yams and Suzuki’s. It was quite a spectacle. There was also quite a gentle nature about the place; no stupid animosity like there was in Milwaukee.

 

There were some rather silly homemade bikes, like a V8 trike, bat-mo-bike and a fire engine bike.

 

I chatted for a while with a member of the Christian Biker Association who was giving out tracts. It was interesting to get their slant on life. I got myself an Americade t-shirt made up. It was a Harley-Davidson t-shirt, the lone wolf, with a biker and wolf on it with the Americade symbol on the back. No, I wasn’t a loner standing at the gates of oblivion on the last freedom moped out of nowhere city. But it kind of summed up my trip better than any other t-shirt in the shop.

 

I also really splashed out and bought myself a leather jacket. Sure, I was within 1000 miles of the end of my trip after completing 11 000, but a waterproof jacket and fleece were no protection for tarmac abrasion. It was something to take home really.

 

All in all, there was a good atmosphere and I was enjoying the place.

 

 

Saturday 12^th June

 

I had a really restful night, despite lots of snoring and Hogs passing by. I had bought some earplugs and they were worth their weight in gold.

 

I chatted to a guy named Jim from New Jersey and he was well impressed with my trip. He asked me if I’d like to take a ride with him and I reckoned it would be fun, just as long as he wouldn’t go too fast on his Honda CBR 600. My bike was just about out of brake pads, well down to the metal and not feeling too sprightly.

 

We met up with two of Jims’ friends as we watched the parade. I had obviously become some kind of celebrity as one of them said, “oh your that English guy who’s rode around the States to come to Americade for a piece of the action. Local Radio has been asking about you.”

 

Yes I had ridden around the USA, but not specifically to come to Americade. Truth is easily distorted to make a good story.

 

The parade was made up of all sorts of shiny bikes, silly bikes, obscene bikes and even a few scooters. Lots of people wore costumes but nothing really made me even giggle, let alone laugh. A gorilla riding a Harley? I’m afraid I wasn’t laughing.

 

Jim and his mates, one riding a V65 Magma cruiser and the other riding a CBR 900 Fireblade, just about the fastest bike on the road, took off with me following behind.

 

How I was to keep up, God only knew. I had very little in the way of engine power, only one fork working for the suspension and brakes down to the metal on the front.

 

I remained at the rear of the group, but managed to keep in sight and enjoyed the blast around the Adirondack Mountains. Shame I was concentrating 120% on the tarmac in front of me rather than the beautiful scenery around me. Mountains and deciduous woodland of a completely unspoilt nature.

 

We quickly got past three figures on our mile metres and on arriving back at Lake George; the boys congratulated me on keeping up. I was quite please with that.

 

After bidding farewell, I left New York State and headed into Vermont looking for the house of David and Dino Rice, whom I had called a few days before. These friends of Will lived on a wonderful New England farmhouse with red barns and surrounded by trees.

 

Vermont was a wonderful place. Full of forest with the occasional little town nestled amongst the trees. Just beyond Rutland I found their house. It was beautiful to see and quite the tonic I needed after being amongst so many people since I had left Yellowstone.

 

The Rices were wonderful guests and made me feel so very much at home. It was so nice to sleep in a bed without the fear of being woken by horrendous snoring.

 

 

Sunday 13^th June

 

We all lied in, finally getting up for Brunch, somewhere between breakfast and lunch, which seems a most agreeable American tradition.

 

I helped David take some stuff down to the local tip that seemed the most wonderful recycling centre I had ever seen. David had his eyes on some windows, which had come in a few days ago. It wasn’t so much a tip; more of an exchange centre and the man running it was such a friendly chap. I was beginning to really love New England. It was a million miles away form the usual consumerism that abounds the great USA.

 

It had to be done sometime, over 6000 miles of dried on mud and bugs were splattered on my bike, and so it had to have a wash. Soon I would have to try and sell it. I also washed Dino’s car. It took half the time that it took to wash my bike.

 

Before diner David took me for a walk in the woods to see their Maple Syrup farm, They had over 1000 trees tapped and at the right time of year the trees would ooze syrup down the pipes to the sugar house, where it would be boiled down into Maple Syrup. It was quite an experience, in the middle of a wood with pipes leading from here to there in a strange network.

 

David showed me one of his barns and pointed out a snake in the rafters just above my head. I was hoping to escape that type of critter, but it appears they are following me.

 

We spent the evening watching the ‘tube’ and then I read for a while before a good sleep. I really like Vermont. It has a brilliant relaxed atmosphere, strong community relations, a wonderful environment and a good sense of environmentalism. If I had to move to the USA, I’d come here.

 

 

Monday 14^th June

 

I had a long lie in and then headed out to find a bike shop to buy new brake pads for my bike. They ha got own to the metal a few days ago, but being rather mechanically unsympathetic and fairly skint, I had been avoiding the problem.

 

The bike shop was closed for the day. I was so happy to find a place that gave its employees another day off for having to work Saturdays. That practice was soon disappearing in the UK, so long may it continue in Vermont. God bless her.

 

I went to a second hand bookstore and bought another book to read. All afternoon I rested against a red barn and read in the sun looking at the wonderful trees and wind blowing through the grass. Not an unnatural noise could be heard, it was a peaceful place and I was so happy to be here.

 

I spent the rest of the day looking around the locality, walking into the woods and exploring. I found myself easily lost in the beauty around me. Time went quick and so did my thought.

 

Soon I would be home, no more than a few weeks away. Would I join Major’s Millions, the 3 million unemployed in the UK or would I get a job?

 

Would I have to go back to my previous employers and beg a job, if the worst came to the worst?

 

I really hoped that this trip would spur me on in a direction I might not of realised, but it was hard to imagine where I would go. My qualifications were rather poor but my interests were high. It would be hard to match the two. I put it in the hands of God and carried on looking at the wonders around me.

 

We had another spectacular dinner; Dino was a rather fantastic cook. I sampled some Maple Syrup on pancakes and it was very nice. Kind of like honey, but not quite so sweet, thick and sickly.

 

David had brought home a video, “The Rookie” which we watched and enjoyed. Off to bed late again. I should learn, early to bed creates a beautiful face. That’s my excuse and I ‘m sticking with it.

 

 

Tuesday 15^th June

 

Back to the bike shop to pick up my brakes and on they went without a problem.

 

Hey presto, my bike would stop with 100% stopping power, rather than 25%. I was most pleased, as any man would be.

 

After that I helped Dino on the syrup farm and get some wood out of the forest. It was good fun hauling a bit of timber, even more fun driving the 1960’s pick-up truck. It was strange, everything was back to front. The gear stick was hard to operate with my right hand and even harder to get in the right gear. It was a good job motorbikes are all the same wherever you find them in the world.

 

As we off loaded the last bit of timber a huge thundercloud swept over and showered the area. Day turned into night and we ran for the house.

 

David had brought another film home; he seemed to enjoy having a bit of male company about. We watched Patriot Games, a film of a book I had read at the beginning of my trip. The film was good but not quite the same tenseness as the book. 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 16^th June

 

Took a ride out to see some of the local sights. I took a tiny ferry across Lake Champlain to get to Ticonderoga Fort. During the War of Independence it changed hands from British to American at least 10 times.

 

I mean, trust a load of German mercenaries to do a job and what happens…It’s all our fault really.

 

I rode around Lake Champlain on tiny roads, many made of dust that was so quaint. It began to rain and I sheltered underneath a roofed bridge. Another quaint experience. I felt like I was on a day trip to the Cotswolds. I rode on, only to be caught by another shower. This time I took shelter in McDonalds. Not quite so quaint, and no, that diet coke isn’t quite finished.

 

Back to the Rice’s and another fantastic dinner. I showered and fell asleep very soon after.

 

 

Thursday 17^th June

 

I was getting fed up with biking trips so decided to go up the Shrewsbury Peak somewhere in the forests behind the house. At over 4000 feet, the height of Ben Nevis in my home country, I was expecting it to be visible. Not a chance, it was covered in trees right to it’s top.

 

The trail was wonderful weaving through the unspoilt woodland. I met not one person that day and it helped me to get my head together for the trip home.

 

It was amazing to stand still for 20 minutes or so, not making a noise. There were so many critters scurrying around. I didn’t see one of them, but the noises were very interesting. I went to search out who was making the noise, but found nothing. I was just another big-footed human.

 

At the top I could see all over Vermont. Forested hills were all I could see, not a glimpse of the little villages, towns and roads I knew where there. It was a fine view and I was glad to be in a part of the USA where the environment was loved and respected by just about everyone I met.

 

Heading back down saw me attacked by thousands of flies who considered me very tasty foreign food. I had no time to eat, just rush through the forests, waving my hands about my head like a true berserka.

 

More reading in the sun leaning up against a red barn and itching like a hound. I counted over 30 bites on just one forearm. Apparently it is a bad time to visit Vermont because the June bugs are out and eat just about anything.

 

Will phoned to see how I was getting on and I had a long chat with David and Dino. Tomorrow I would be leaving for Boston, where I hoped to sell my bike and take the train to NYC. This was my last experience of rural USA and it had been one of the best, wonderful people, wonderful place, apart from the bugs.

 

 

Friday 18^th June

 

I left David and Dino’s at midday bearing gifts of maple syrup from the farm and headed towards Boston through New Hampshire. There were lots of bikes riding about. Later on I found it was bike week, where every biker takes a week off from work and blasts around the place. Fair enough.

 

Getting into Boston was quite hard as there was a huge traffic jam. As I approached the front of the queue where there were some traffic lights, my bike began to overheat, then the clutch failed with the bike in 1^st gear. I was going nowhere and the horns honking didn’t really help. I had no idea how to get a hydraulic clutch back working again after it had overheated. My best thought was to empty my water bottle over the engine, it must of looked rather funny, but hey presto, it fixed the bike!

 

I jumped back on and found my way to the AYH down the most complicated one-way street system I had ever tried to negotiate.

 

After booking into the hostel I went out with a New Zealander girl to an Irish bar, drank Guinness and watched a basketball game. It was interesting to watch, and at least I could fathom the rules, unlike American Football, which was more like a soap opera than a game.

 

Some chap waved a can in our face and told us he was collecting money for “The Cause.”

 

I asked him what “cause?”

 

He told me it was for the struggle in Northern Ireland.

 

Not long before I had left the Provisional IRA had set of a bomb in Warrington, quite close to where I lived and blown the faces off two young boys. It had become a bit of a focal point of outrage against the PIRA. However the father of one of the boys, not wanting to seek revenge, just wanted the violence to stop, and campaigned none stop for a stop to the murder.

 

I have much sympathy for the Catholics in Northern Ireland. The intimidations has to stop, the racism and religious intolerance has to stop and so do those stupid bloody marches. But it won’t be stopped by killing people. Surely the efforts of Ghandi and Martin Luther-King have shown that.

 

I asked the spotty youth if the money was to buy semtex to blow little children up and he immediately spat back, “lies and propaganda.” He stormed off, and we soon left the bar as we were getting hard stares.

 

Boston is a big supporting ground for the PIRA; I was quite shaken by how the truth could be ignored to support the killing of innocent people.

 

Perhaps I was the victim of propaganda from the British government, but the truth still remained. Do not kill was one of the Ten Commandments and that could not be argued.

 

We headed back to the hostel. Boston seems quite like New York, but not so architecturally stimulating. I somehow loathed it now. I wondered how many of the Murphy’s Bars with green neon shamrocks flashing in the night had guns and bombs stashed around the back ready to be shipped to Northern Ireland to continue the misery and despair.

 

It was hard to sleep that night, it was too hot and I felt troubled. I so wish I hadn’t booked into the hostel for two nights.

 

 

Saturday 19^th June

 

I hoped to sell my bike today, but when I made enquires at a Honda dealer, I didn’t have the vehicle title so I couldn’t sell it. It would have been posted to where I had bought it. Oh well, I would have to ride back to New York City.

 

I had a ride around the town and got hopelessly lost. I eventually found myself at the beach where there was a great multitude of kids in their dorky huge cars with chart pap booming out of their beat boxes. I was going to have a paddle in the Atlantic Ocean, but the oppressive noise made me turn back.

 

I saw the ship where the Boston Tea Party took place and then it began to rain quite viciously so I sat in the train station writing a few cards over a coffee.

 

Not wanting to go out in the evening I sat in the hostel chatting to other visitors. I found I was handing out lots of advice. I guess without knowing it, I had become a seasoned traveller.

 

I also gave away some of my camping stuff, cooker and sleep mat, as I wouldn’t be able to take them on the plane.

 

 

Sunday 20^th June

 

Headed to NYC on a rather quiet Route 95, but it was so nice to be riding by the sea. It was kind of calling me home; I’m just 3000 miles away now.

 

To call me home even more, a Mini came belting past me coughing out blue smoke, but the driver seemed to be enjoying himself, and that’s all that matters with Minis.

 

Rode through the Bronx to see if it was really as rough as everyone said. It didn’t seem too bad, but that is easy to say when you can get out of it quick on a bike.

 

At a traffic light, I was behind a huge stretch limo. A black lady punched me on the shoulder and said with a grin. “Hey, boy, I know what I’d be rather riding on.” Pointing at my bike.

 

I was somewhat taken aback as my bike was covered in rust, dents, dirt, oil and to top it all off had me sitting on it.

 

What a nice lady.

 

I booked in at the expensive but well facilitated AYH in Harlem. New York’s temperature had risen drastically since I had last been here, it was uncomfortably humid but I was grateful for the air-conditioning.

 

I watched the finals of the basketball on the TV with the rest of the hostel. The Chicago Bulls were playing the Phoenix Suns. It was very close but the Bulls clinched it with just 3 seconds to spare with a long-range field goal.

 

The whole Harlem erupted at full time Basketball is a religion here. There was one guy in front of me making lots of noise during the match and it turned out to be Mark who had almost got us killed in Milwaukee. It was my first re-encounter of the trip.

 

Things eventually quietened down in Harlem and as I was dosing off, I heard five or six gunshots in the street outside. Ten minutes later a bolt of lightening struck the yard at the back of the hostel. It was a pretty creepy night

 

 

Monday 21^st June

 

I was going to sell the bike today, so I had a little ride around NYC before we said goodbye. I rode down to the World Trade Centre and Wall Street to have a look around then onto the East River where the police were fishing a body out of the river by The Watchtower, the Jehovah’s Witness headquarters which helpfully flashed up the time and temperature. I’m sure they used to flash up when the world was going to end, but perhaps that was my imagination.

 

I phoned up Camrod, who said they’d buy the bike back off me, so stopping outside the shop; we spent our last few minutes together.

 

The clock showed 12 652 miles travelled and I had passed through 30 of the USA’s 51 states.

 

The fork seal was still blown from when I picked it up; there were countless dents, seats ripped and a thick layer of ground on dirt. But it was still the best bike I had ever had or ever will have.

 

I had to take a memento, so I took off the far reach front foot-pegs.

 

They took the bike off me for just $200 but had I just dumped in the Hudson River. I would have had my every last penny’s worth. Saying that I couldn’t do that to my baby.

 

I left my Honda Nighthawk 650 with a bunch of mechanics laughing at its sorry state.

 

At the next telephone box, I called to arrange my flight and was delighted to get onto the next flight flying out tomorrow.

 

This is it; my adventure is all but over. Maybe now, I’m going to start philosophising about how the trip had enhanced my life and broadened my views, but blow it. I had a blast it was a complete hoot. I can philosophise later.

 

 

Tuesday 22^nd June

 

I was at a loss with what to do with myself for the morning as my flight left in the afternoon. I left my baggage at the AYH and looked around a naval museum on the West Side housing an aircraft carrier, missile destroyer and cruise missile submarine. It was all very interesting.

 

I walked back up to Time Square and bought a few presents with the remaining $15 I had left and then walked back up to 103^rd Street and the AYH to pick up my bags. From there I took a bus to JFK and sat around waiting for my flight. I had arrived way too early and had the universally boring inside of an airport to study from my seat.

 

Why can’t somebody stick and art gallery in an airport, or put a picture on the wall, or leave a book on the table, it wouldn’t take much to make airports really appealing places.

 

I had plenty of time to consider other things such as, “is this flight going to be blown up in mid air like it was in 1985?” And, “why couldn’t Air India be on strike again?” Together with the hilarious, “Air India has the worst safety record of any international carriers, one in every ten million passengers of Air India dies because a plane hasn’t had its wings screwed on tight enough, or something like that.”

 

Jeeper’s creepers, I need to change my channel of thoughts. I’m sure I was being anxious about nothing. I think Air India flew a plane with 200 people into a mountain only last year, so statistically Air India will have to fly 200 million people before they wire up the landing gear down button to the cut engine switch.

 

I was still kind of worried Air India had flown 199.999995 million people since the last crash but it was too late now. As I boarded the flight a little chap armed with a squeaky buzzy thing jabbed it in my groin and all over my being. I was most irritated by this invasion of my personal belongings.

 

Upon boarding the plane, I was hit by an intense curry smell. There was no need for a menu on this flight.

 

We took off in the usual manner and I stained out of the window to see some glimpse of the United States of America. I saw nothing. That was it; my trip on that continent had ended.

 

The highlights? Walking down the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, The Hoe Valley rainforests, Yellowstone and Vermont were the places that stuck in my mind. Living with the Davys, Will and the Rice’s were the people whom showed me so much of the USA that you won’t get from a Rough Guide.

 

I settled back in my uncomfortable economy class seat and tried to get some sleep for the seven-hour flight.

 

The meal was rolled out, a rather hot curry, just one choice. It was quite good, but I didn’t get enough liquid down me, so the rest of the flight was spent on a low flame.

 

 

Wednesday 23^rd June

 

The plane landed on its wheels and on a runway, it was even the right runway at Heathrow. I was back in the UK.

 

It was a strange feeling; I was home, yet not really. London was as alien to me as New York City was. I wouldn’t be home till I could see, the Cheshire plain before me reaching out to the Clwydian Mountains on one side and the rolling hills of the Moorlands finding their way to the Peak District on the other. It was the view from my home and just about all I wanted to see.

 

I had had a tiny amount of sleep on the plane due to the curry, lights going on and off like a disco, the chap next to me kicking me every now and again and snoring.

 

Snoring had been the biggest upset of my trip, just about everyone I have been in close proximity to during a sleep period has snored and armed with a pillow, I was about to explode into a righteous cull of anyone who had this affliction.

 

I didn’t, and instead manoeuvred my hand luggage so that the next kick from my neighbour would make contact right on his shin.

 

Sleep was not easy as the plane hit a bit of turbulence making me wish for a time machine to go back and pay the extra £30 to fly another carrier, anyone.

 

After picking up my luggage, I took the tube to Euston station and got a mid morning train back to Stoke on Trent. As I waited a bewildered Nigerian asked me how to get a ticket to Swindon and I helped him to do so and pointed him towards the right platform. He was as black as the ace of spades but when we said goodbye and he thanked me wholeheartedly, he gave me the biggest, whitest smile I have ever seen. It made me thank God for the diversity of people in the world, yet the ease it took to get on and get such a fantastic smile. It made me giggle for most of the way home.

 

The train ride back was full of thoughts. Would things of changed much? Would my friends still be my friends? Had my Mum rented out my room to a family of Cambodian refugees? Perhaps I should stop thinking these silly thoughts and just get there to find out.

 

Perhaps a road had been dug up, or a one-way street installed, but in just under three months, nothing much will of changed.

 

I got off the train at Stoke Station and walked out onto the street. This looked like home. In front of me stood the statue of Josiah Wedgwood, Stoke on Trent’s most famous son. Father of the North Staffordshire pottery industry. In his hand he held a pot and marvelled at it with his other.

 

I presume an over indulged student from the local university had placed and fag but between his finger and a can of Tennents Super in the other. It was obviously the work of an art student as it looked just so natural. I’m not sure if I had seen the original or a copy of an earlier work. But since then the splendid piece has been reworked many times.

 

I laughed out loud; this place was definitely my home and I loved it.

 

A number of PMT bus rides later saw me in Biddulph, my hometown. It was a four-mile walk up to Biddulph Park where the family home was, but I was looking forward to the walk, it would be good to look at familiar surroundings from a slower pace and maybe get my thoughts together.

 

I had just got into my voyage of rediscovery when my next-door neighbour stopped and gave me a lift back to my house. I was secretly quite pleased, as I was dead tired.

 

She dropped me off on the drive of my house, I hadn’t called to let anyone know I was soon to return; I was hoping to surprise everyone. Ten steps down the drive I was greeted by Sam, our dog who virtually knocked me to the ground in excitement.

 

Walking through the front door I ran straight into my Mum who immediately burst into tears, telling me she reminded me so much of my Dad. I almost cried myself. A sit down and a proper cup of tea settled us all down as we caught up on news and stories.

 

There were lots of emotional reunions as Helen and Colin came back from work and finally I sat in my room after the sunset looking out over the Peak District by the moon on a clear night. I felt somewhat flattened, yet knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was my home, here I was welcome and belonged.

 

I had come across many a place on my trip that I would like to call home, but this is truly home. It is so good to be back where I belong.

 

 

Epilogue

 

I have re-written these journals from the originals 12 years after finishing my trip. My main reason was to expand upon the feelings and thoughts I had instead of the bare bone facts of the original document.

 

I also wanted to write down something properly which might be interesting for my children many years from now.

 

Many of the people, names and locations may have become a bit hazy over the years, but the emotions have not. I often think back to them.

 

I still find it hard to believe sometimes that I actually did what I did, but the truth is; it wasn’t hard. Everything fell into place. For that I can only thank God.

 

What did it do for me? From my stand point I can see it made me so much more self confident, aware of my environment, non-judgemental and happy with myself, whatever failing or successes I had.

 

I had always struggled to be something or do something, academically or physically that would make a mark. I was rather middle of the road in both of these if truth were known. Yet my trip to the USA had shown me that if I believed in myself, not in any academic qualification, or physical attribute but just in my own character and desire to do something, that would be enough.

 

I know that part of my trip had been a self-realisation of who I was and what my strengths and weaknesses were. That in itself would have been worth the whole thing but to see providence and friendship from on high was even better. It was good to see what He had made.

 

To sum it up, good old Do Ronny put it best not long after I returned. “You went out a boy, but you came back a Man.” That sounds so macho. Thanks Do Ronny.