America The Beautiful

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I was going to post this blog next week but I have just realised that it is the 4th of July, which feels like the perfect moment to launch 'the big one'.

When it comes to writing a patriotic song the Yanks know a thing or two.  This particular one is very much on my mind at the moment because of the verse:
 
"America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea"
 
I rode 'from sea to shining sea' in 2009, a journey that pre-dated this blog but very much started the whole thing with a series of email updates during the journey.   It was on those emails that I started using song titles to introduce each entry, little realising what a rod for my own back I was creating.  The whole trip and experience may not have been life-changing but it was definitely life-affirming, and I had absolutely the best time EVER!
 
I never imagined that I would get to repeat the experience, but an opportunity has arisen for me to introduce 11 of Bike Adventure's hardiest customers to the delights of a 'Trans-Am'.   We will be taking a slightly different route - some might say easier but it is a very relative term as we will still ride 4200 miles and climb 6 Everests.  Starting in Florence, Oregon we work our way through Idaho and Montana then through Wyoming (Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks) and across the Rockies before picking up the 'direct' route in Pueblo, Colorado across the central plains of Kansas, then through the hills of Missouri and Kentucky, finishing in Yorktown, Virginia (the place where General Cornwallis finally said to George Washington, "fine, if you want the country that badly you can have it" and buggered off home).
 
Unlike 2009, when I was self-supported and mostly camping, we are doing it in style; we have a support vehicle and driver (my brother, John) and it is hotels all the way.  I will, of course, be joined by Plum as well as Chris, with whom we rode from Brisbane to Adelaide a couple of years ago.  I see no reason why we should not subject you to a blog every day or two; compared with the challenge of having to read up to 70 of these things I suppose we have the easy part.....though coming up with that many new songs isn't going to be a walk in the park.
 
I fly to Seattle 2 weeks today then have a day to round up, in order of priority: beer fridge, portable bbq, support van, breakfast supplies,  miscellaneous other equipment.  I will meet Plum and the others in Portland then we head to the coast for an overnight stop and a ritual dipping of our rear wheels in the Specific Ocean.  Hopefully we will get in before Trump slaps an import tariff on cyclists!
 
Y'all have a nice day now.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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