nothing like cheesesteaks, chicken cheese steaks and cheese fries...

hello,
I'm in Lansdowne, Pa (just outside of Philadelphia).

I guess i'll summarize the last few weeks, to try to give a better sense of
the conclusion of the trip, since I was told that my emails "fizzled out at
the end" by a trusted source.

I was in Whitefish, MT for a week after the last email I sent out. During
that time I did what the locals did - went to the high school football game
- "Go Bulldogs!" went to the bars in town, went hiking with someone I met
at the Dairy Queen and um... went to the library... I was completely bored
out of my mind after a few days. It's pretty and all, and I bet if you ski
it would be great to be at the base of Big Mountain, but my stay in
Whitefish really hammered home how much I like living in a city. I actually
met a bunch of bikers who stayed at the hostel and it was really nice to
exchange stories and information and shots of tequila with tobasco in it.

Then came September 11th and I got pretty freaked out being in Montana with
everyone screaming retaliation and "well, Bush said we're gonna bomb 'em
all, so we're gonna nuke 'em all, that's right!" I also felt really guilty
and useless being 3,000 miles away from New York. We started biking again
on the 13th, but with 10 hours on a bike with nothing to do but sit with my
thoughts, I was consumed by thinking about what was going on back east. At
the same time I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next,
because from Spokane Alex was going to drive back to Iowa for a week since
he was the best man in a wedding. The last thing I wanted to do was to
wait around in Spokane for 7 or 8 days for him to return to finish out the
trip. My decision was between continuing on alone for the last 400 miles or
just finishing the trip in Spokane. So, we biked through Idaho (heard lots
of warnings about hate groups in Idaho - "keep your sunglasses on since you
don't have blue eyes; you'll probably be ok since you have blond hair..."
but just like everywhere else all of the people we met were really nice) and
then into Washington. I'm trying to think of funny things that happened,
but there just weren't that many. We pulled into one gas station and I saw
out of the corner of my eye this red round thing bobbing along the ditch. I
assumed it was a liberated red balloon. However at closer inspection I saw
that it was the next obvious answer - spiderman...or a little kid dressed up
in complete spiderman garb. He was flying around that ditch just like the
real thing; he totally had all of the moves down. Also, down the road from
the gas station at the bar there were a couple of trucks parked out front as
well as a horse tied up to the hitching post. Thought that was pretty cool,
someone actually rode their horse to the bar. Idaho and Washington were
really spectacular landscape wise and i would love to come back and some day
bike the cascades.

We pulled into Spokane around 1pm, stopped at the post office to ship my
panniers home, went to the bike shop to drop off our bikes to have them
shipped to our respective homes, then got in a cab to the airport to pick up
the rental car. Now, if this was fiction I would have continued biking to
the coast and upon seeing the Pacific Ocean reflect on all of my experiences
of the summer and suddenly I would have clarity on what I wanted to do with
the rest of my life, the music would start playing and probably the love
interest that i would have met in Wisconsin would suddenly appear and all
would be perfect. No check that, Ben Affleck would appear just back from
saving the world by arm wrestling Osama Bin Laden and since this obviously
has turned into a Bruckheimer/Bay flick there would be an American flag
flapping in the back ground as we embraced and Aerosmith wailed their newest
top 20 ballad. Unfortunately this is reality and within an hour of pulling
into Spokane we were in a car (a daewoo no less) driving east with no
fanfare, no reflection, just another moment on the trip.

It took 3 and a half months to get across the country and 3 and a half days
to get back. That even included a stopover in the town where I grew up
outside of Pittsburgh - I can't believe how much the place has changed
(hadn't been back in 5 or 6 years).

I spent two days in New York, mostly walking around by myself taking it all
in, then came down to Philly and am staying with Melissa. I'll drive down
to North Carolina on Saturday.

I hope everyone is doing well.
take care.
cheers,
leigh

And then it was over

Hi,
I'm in Waterloo, Iowa and I can't stop singing ABBA.

So, like everyone Tuesday hit me pretty hard. Much harder than I expected.
I walked around Whitefish for a couple of days unable to get on my bike
until I heard back from my friends in New York (thank you all for your quick
responses.)

I started to write a summary of the days prior to Tuesday and then a summary
of the days since, but I just read a couple of emails from friends who lost
friends and I'm not feeling up to it.

We biked to Spokane, Washington and rented a car to drive back. I just
dropped Alex off at the wedding (well, not exactly at the wedding), said
goodbye and will get back in the car and continue driving in about 4 minutes
when my 30 minutes are up on this computer. I'm going to New York because I
feel like I need to be there right now and then will head down and spend
some time with my parents in North Carolina.

Sorry for the abrupt ending to my vacation journals - it sort of mirrors the
abrupt ending to my vacation. This trip always was about the journey and
not about the destination.


I hope you all are doing ok. Please take care.
Leigh

I'm your huckleberry

Hello!
I'm in Whitefish, MT. I'll be here for the next few days, because Alex went
to a bachelor party in Lake Tahoe and as much as I'm sure that I would have
been really welcome to join them in their festivities, I decided to kick it
in Whitefish for the weekend.

I'm not really sure where I left off, but the last story I can think of took
place in some remote town in central Montana. Alex and I were biking along
and a truck pulled up next to us. An old man who was hard of hearing (we
soon found out) screamed out to us, "You lookin' for work?!"
Kind of surprised, I shrugged and said, "No."
Of course he replied, "HEH?!"
To which I screamed, "NO!"
He then responded with, "I heard you were lookin' for work."
Me - "No, not us! Just looking for a store."
Old man - "Well, do you wanna herd sheep?! I'm lookin' for people to help
me herd my sheep!"
Me - "No, we're just passing through."
Old man - "Oh." short pause during which i thought he would drive away then
suddenly he yelled out, "Can you cook?!"
Me - "Uh... sort of."
Old man - "We need a cook too!"
Me - "Yeah, but I'm not looking for work, remember?"
He then asked us where we were going and the usual questions, but when he
found out that we were going to end up north of Seattle, he chimed in with,
"Oh, you'll love it out there. You could get a job at the docks! I did
that for a few years!" I looked at him and wanted to say, or scream as the
case may be, "man, you missed your calling as a headhunter, you should have
never settled on ranching." His final words were, "Are you sure you don't
want to help me round up all the dogs in this town. We'll put these dogs to
work and you on your bike, we'll herd those sheep real good." I just smiled
and shook my head.

We passed through many small (small as in less than 250 people) towns and
lots of dried out farm land. This was the worst summer for rain in the past
50 years following the prior two worst summers - about 2 inches of rain in
the past 4 months in these parts. It made for a really depressing and
desolate landscape. In the little town of Hingham we camped at the city
park and went for dinner to the only place in town that served as the
bar/restaurant/general store/showers. After I had taken my shower I went up
to the bar to order dinner. There were a bunch of farmers and ranchers
sitting around the end of the bar and when they saw me one yelled out, "Are
you a lawyer?" Looking around, then realizing that he was talking to me, I
responded, "no." He came back with, "Ever want to be a lawyer?" Again I
answered, "no." The final question was, "Are you an environmentalist?" To
which I had to admit, "well, not really." Then suddenly he screamed out,
"CLINGER! Buy these two a drink!" And wouldn't you know the bartender
walked over and looked just like a 21 year old Jamie Farr from MASH. What
followed was one of the most fascinating nights on the trip. Every 15
minutes one of them would yell out, "CLINGER! We're thirsty! I'm buying
everyone a drink." It got to the point where I couldn't keep up with all of
the beers bought for me and I looked up and there were 3 empty overturned
shot glasses signifying paid drinks for me. We talked about everything with
the farmers - their dislike of environmentalist lawyers and why, to
government programs/the economics of wheat farming, to the deterioration of
their small towns, to the importance of high school sports. It was here
that I found out how these small schools can support a football team - they
play 8 man or 6 man football. In 6 man the center can catch the ball, but
the quarterback can't run, where in 8 man usual rules apply. The entire
talk was completely enlightening. To the point where I think every student
of econ 101 should be forced to go out and talk to a Montana farmer to fully
understand the ramifications of different economic theories.
I was reading their beer list at one point, and asked what a red beer was.
For those of you who don't know, a red beer is any lite beer on tap, such as
Miller Lite, mixed with tomato juice. Or you could use V-8 juice, OR, if
you liked clams...clamato juice. I tried it; it wasn't bad.

The past week we've been biking in and around Glacier National Park. Wow,
is it beautiful. I had never seen the Rocky Mountains, and they blew away
my expectations. We biked over them on the Going to the Sun highway. They
weren't as bad as crossing the Appalachians (hopefully I'm in a little
better shape than I was at the start) but there were lots of switchbacks so
the climb wasn't as rough.

There are also lots of huckleberry products out here. Never having tried
huckleberries before, I have discovered that I love them. They are like
blueberries, but much better. Subsequently I have had huckleberry pie,
huckleberry ice cream, huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry vinaigrette salad
dressing, huckleberry chocolate bars, huckleberry daiquiris...

In case you were wondering, luckily the forest fires didn't touch the roads
we were on, but it was very eerie watching gigantic clouds of smoke billow
up and over the mountains and being covered by ashes by the end of the day.

Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
leigh