So long and thanks for all the...

...er...actually. I'm not going to include the long list of things I just typed out.

There are a couple of friendly Americans I have met in my time here.

They do not change my opinion of the place, but they do make me think twice before broadwaving it on this blog. I shall hold my peace, unless asked. So if you really want to know what I think of America. Ask me.

But. This blog post, thanks to Dan, Zach, Annie, Cresten, Maddie, Ashton, Charles, Kat and Gerry, is going to be upbeat. They are great people. They do their country proud.

The rest of you suckers need to wake up.

Anyhow. In 10 hours I head for the Airport. From whence I shall, using two aeroplanes and a car (a downsizing from two aeroplanes, four trains, a bus and my feet), travel from here to there.

Which, personally, I think is awesome. What? Like a hotdog?

So, join me in bidding farewell to this short lived blip of a country. And I shall, all going to plan, see you on my next whirlwind adventure.

Greg

Ps. On the demand of the North Carolinians, I have to include that I built a wall, mowed some lawns, dug some holes, took a stanley knife to some carpet / underlay and generally caused trouble in this state.

Ooops outside yer boat...

..say Ooops Outside Yer Boat.

That's right. White water rafting.

But that is jumping ahead of myself, so I shall start on Thursday, which I believe is where I left you. Thursday: Chillin. Friday: Chillin. Friday evening: Getting to the amazing Jack's Tap On The Corner. I don't believe this is the name of an injury or wrestling move, but since Americans call taps fawcetts , then I'm left with no other options. Anyhow. Great choice of beers (I may not drink, but this is important in a gastropub), good food and chubby waitresses. Good establishment.

From there to the banks of Lake Norman. The aim was to take a star trail with the stars reflected in the water. But upon arrival we were faced with not only the effects of Public Enemy Number One, but also mother nature screwing with our plans.

Saturday: Biggs Amazing Camera Emporium. Which is awesome. Seriously. I kid you not it's amazing. Big bins of second hand gear to rootle through. Interesing inventions to try out and incredible lenses in strong glass cases which they let you get out and play with even if you make it perfectly obvious that you don't intend to buy it.

Then lake boating, which involved about 30knots and lots of diving. I have no photos of this, you'll just have to take my word for it that every dive I took was incredible and Olympics worthy.

Then today, which was entirely taken up by the Überexcellent White Water Centre of Amoebia.

At which they put the tiny American Olypians through their soggy paces. So, yeah, much getting flicked out of boats, much surfing rapids, much climbing out of the rapids and jumping back in the boat to do it again. And then rock climbing, there was lots of that too. Ouch.

So, yeah, anyone care to hazard a guess at just how much I loved it.

Chris, man, you should have been there.

Anyhow, now I intend to sleep as if it's just been invented. That's right. In a suit. And hat.

G

Damnit, hummingbird, come here...

...so I can take your photo.

I have my camera hooked up to my laptop. So I can trigger it from over here. I have a humming bird feeder set up and it's all going well. apart from the bloody models keep flying away.

Anyhow, I shall persevere.

In the mean time: Here are some of the photos from the trip.Have a look and have fun.
G

( 2 hours later: POW!


)

(and half an hour later, with a little more refinement:
















)

Journey's Break

So, I've made it to the Tarheel State.

I'm staying at the house of Dr Kat and her family. Which is very kind of them. In return I am trying to be jovial and entertaining. I am also being schooled in the lawn mowing arts and I'm sure, since history tends to repeat itself, I shall soon break part of the house.

As most of you know I have been looking forward to this section of the journey for ages. Although, I guess it's more of a chronological section than an geographical one. You know? I have been looking forward to it for about 3 reasons, which I list here in inverse order of importance: One, I get to stop cycling. Two, I get to sleep in a bed. Three, I get to see Kat, whom I have known since she was knee high to a grasshopper.

Since she was about 5'5" at the time, I would estimate that this grasshopper would be eight or nine feet long, if it is the back knee in question.

Talking of knees: Ow. MRI sir? Yes, yes please.

So, where was I with this cycling story? If I remember correctly, we had just made camp on the banks of the Susquehanna. From there we headed south following routes 405 and 147. It was all going well, the terrain is gorgeous and the people were a mixed bunch of grumpy, crazy and friendly. We stopped at a tiny road-side fruit stand and June (one of the ancientest and most sun tanned folks I have ever met) showered us with various carbohydrates and refused our monies. Which was nice. A raw sweetcorn each and some blackberries later we continued rolling hills and coming down a long downhill we were overtaken by a few juggernauts.

The very last one of which had a surprise for me. The surprise consisted of a plastic bag, which was full of rotten cow entrails, which were...how to put this...also full.

Which, the gentleman driving applied to the back of my neck, my left leg, my bike and worst of all my face. Liberally. Through his window. At 50mph.

What a bastard.

Whatever, I'm a vet, I've been covered in worse.

So, over I pulled and I strode fully clothed into the river, rinsed off, got given some water by some bow-fishing gents and get ready to re-depart. Incidentally, while doing so I go chatting to one of these bow-fishermen and it turns out that he's a member of both federal and local law enforcement. So a detailed description of the truck followed and I was given the firm promise that if the offender was caught up with he would be hauled from the cab, placed gently upon the ground and kicked to faecal incontinence.

He didn't word it quite like that.

I politely declined their offer and mentioned that perhaps jail time was more appropriate, but, to be honest, I'm not sure if they were listening at this point.

Off we set again and we made good time, stopping for lunch after about 40 miles. My knee was giving me some serious trouble by this point and the wrenching of nearly being taken off my bike hadn't helped much. This being the case, when my favourite bow-wielding copper drove past, stopped and offered me a lift to Millersburg (which has one of the oddest things I've ever seen in a town: An Order Of Loyal Mooses) and a shower, I accepted gratefully. My bike went into the boat he was towing and I went in the cab.

So, I must report that the house was lovely, the shower was even better and he's got one cool son, one young daughter and one incredibly hot daughter. And an awesome dog. And some odd (possibly not odd for an American) views on capitalism and healthcare. And a nice house. Did I say that?

Arrived Ashton and Charles in town and we made a break for Harrisburg, our daily destination. The cycle itself was uneventful apart from the stress-based auditory hallucination of my right patella grinding on my right femur.

There was one final hurdle to surmount before broaching Harrisburg. That being the stretch of Cycle Route J which goes along Route 22. That being, for some of its length, a raised highway. Made of concrete sections on concrete supports above the forest canopy below. Being hit by a car on 22 would go something like this. Screech, bang, mash against the concrete barrier, flick over the edge, fally fally fally, crash into forest below.

Needless to say we booked. The three of us formed a pace line and flew through there. Knee pain notwithstanding. I was not going to get squished and the mental image of a truck right behind one does wonders for one's endurance and acceleration.

And then it was Harrisburg and the fun of an evening spent relaxing, flirting with a purpose (which I've not really done before, but it occurs to me that it would be an easy was to secure lodgings, aside from it not working on hot waitresses which have angry housemates), enjoying my first, or possible second beer of the summer and bidding farewell to Ashton and Charles.

Which pus me on AMTRAK and you all know how that went :P

Right, I shall write more when more occurs. Right now I'm going to go watch Sherlock.

G

From the depths of time, there came....

...Amtrak!

Actually, the American rail system isn't even old fashioned. It's worse. I'm sure that trains have never been managed so badly in the past either. Look at it this way: I've taken trains on four of the seven continents and I have honestly never hated a system so much as Amtrak.

I just want to rant about this for another couple of lines and then I'll get it out of my system: the trains are uncomfortable, have no litter bins, have no bike space, go at about 30kmh and are hugely bloated so they don't fit onto their small rails properly; the stations are poorly run, poorly deigned and poorly managed while also being made to look like roman temples (or at least Philly is); And the staff schizophrenate between gleefully helpful to maliciously stubborn like bloody pulsars.

Ok, I'm done. Anyhow. As you can guess, I had a pretty hideous train journey to Charlottesville, but I'm here now and have crept into the UVA library to post this.

So, I was going to tell you about the cycling? It was epic. I loved it. I'd got to hitching to Waverly right? Good. From there Tom and Dixie (the folks that picked me up) looked after me and took me (and Charles and Ashton) to a bike shop. Fixed my spoke (drive side, back wheel or I would have done it myself) and got me back on the road.












Managed another 20 miles and stayed behind an abandoned school in Towanda. Got up early, started riding again and managed to make it down past Canton before...punngggg! Another drive side back spoke. Come on! Seriously. And then just as I'd started pushing it: Punnggg! Another one, which pushed the rim onto the brake. So that I had to push a bike with the brake on about 4 miles before I go picked up and offered a lift to Williamsport. Which left me with a 6 mile push to get to a bike shop (which I found out about from a bored lady with Google on her shop till) that...you'll love this...turned out to be closed.

o m F g

Closed on Mondays.

So I thought sod it, I'm going to sling my hammock right here and wait for it to open tomorrow. Luckily I started asking the surrounding gardeners whether they minded that and one of them turned out to be the father of the guy who runs the shop.

So, he opened up the shop and offers to fix my bike. Er...right, I have no idea of this guy knows anything about bikes. He doddering about like the 75 yo he is and I'm worried that he's going to seriously damage either himself or my bike. But what the hell...

Anyhow, this old guy, Dan Devito (seriously), turns out to be a mechanical genius and strong as a bloody elm. It transpires that he was the third of four generations to work the shop and it's been open, like, 100 years. So. That was cool.

So, hit the road again. Up a massive, massive hill. Whipping down the other side (which I got on film, so I'll put it in the video when I do it) and camping in a little old lady's riverside garden on the Susquehanna. With permission (3 rules: no loud music, no litter and be safe in the river). Much to the chagrin of the annoying old bloke who said we should feck off because the lady didn't like to be bothered and would never let people stay there.

Score: Greg's diplomacy 1 : Annoying old bloke 0.

So, aside from swimming in the river, some cool photos and falling asleep watching fireflies there was the large "thing" that was splashing around in the water and turning over rocks (the size that go clunk instead of clatter) looking for crayfish at about 03:00. Which was fun.

Ok. Once again, I grow weary of this story, I'll finish later.

G

So. Er. Right.

So...

Yeah, where to begin? I've crashed out. I have a few reasons, mostly because I was doing terrible grinding things to my knee. Other reasons are trifling, but will be mentioned.

Anyhow, the first day went well, set out from Ithaca. Huge climb out of Ithaca. Then settled down for a good long slog and some fun dirt-roading. Followed by a nice straight through Spencer. Or at least it would have been, if I hadn't blown a drive-side back spoke. Which, meant hitching to Waverly to a bike shop.

But, spoke fixed we hit the road again...

...actually, you know what, I'm knackered, I'll finish this some other time.


Roadkill Totals: Marmots 40+; Rattlesnakes 1; Cats 3; Massive Bloody Alligator Snapping Turtles 1; Little Turtles 5; Possums 4; Skunks 3; Bears 0

Day Three of Cycle...

...is, due to a small scheduling mishap, actually day zero. But yeah. All the gear is the the bags. All the bags are on the bikes and all the maps are in the minds.

We're going to be clocking 50-70 mile days (80-116km for my friends outside the states).

Hitting the road tomorrow at 06:00

And I'm actually too exhausted to say much else. It's been a long couple of days.