If I had not been able for some reason, - career, personal or financial, - to plan this year long global cycle ride, my fall back plan was to take three months off to ride across America.  Now why was that?  I had never even been to America, until I spent a few days in Washington recently.  I don't know anyone in America, and to be honest, I have always had a slightly sceptical view of all things American.  But there is something about the size of the country, and the variety of scenery and lifestyles contained within it that attracts me.  There is also something in the challenges itself, of riding across the whole country.  I saw a TV programme a few years ago about a bike ride called the RAAM. - The Race Across America.  The leading competitors completed this ride in something like ten days.  More than three thousand miles!  In ten days!  I thought, "I want to do that".  So I will .... but I will take 90 days, and take in some of the sights along the way. 

There seem to be three classic routes across America, broadly across the north, centre or south of the country.  I have chosen the southern based route, joining Route 66 in Mojave CA. and staying with it through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, where it turns north east through Missouri and Illinois right up to Indiana. Here I will leave the route to head east via Lake Eerie and the Niagara Falls, across Pennsylvania to New York City, where I will board the QM2 for my journey home to Southampton.