I spent a nice couple of days in Luxembourg with my friends and their new baby. It was strange to meet their child, of whom there had been no evidence when I passed through at the start of my trip but was now the most important thing in my friends’s lives. Life had definitely moved…
In Geneva I ate and drank too much, like the last time I rode through, and generally enjoyed myself. It was good to be staying with friends again. Leaving felt different than the first time, then I was taking another step from home and the things I knew. This time I was heading closer to…
I left Beziers on a cold morning with my host from the night before: Jean Luc. He rode with me for a bit to make sure I took the right route. This meant I rode from Beziers along the canal du midi before eventually coming out at the Mediterranean. It was, as you’d expect in winter,…
In Mobile I was very glad I’d been lucky enough to be hosted by Ken, not least because it was the coldest night I’d traveled through since last winter. The temperature got down to around minus 6 Celsius, which is no fun in the tent. Riding the next morning it felt even colder with the…
For my first night in Lafayette I was hosted by Becky and John, who were unfailingly kind. They and their son, who was also visiting with his own family, gave me a lot of good advice for the city. They also assured me I shouldn’t be worried about alligators as it was winter. This was…
Given the choice, I probably wouldn’t select the America’s Best Value Inn in Seguin to spend my Christmas day again, or indeed any other day. It wasn’t the worst hotel I’ve stayed in by any stretch but it was certainly the worst value. If I’m paying over $40 a night for a room I expect…
Riding through Sanderson, it seemed that, like most other small rural American towns in this area without a tourist industry, it was slowly dying. A lot of the businesses had closed down or were for sale and there was no market, super or otherwise, outside of the petrol stations. I was a little worried I’d…
In Safford I was fortunate enough to be staying with the Larson family. They were kind enough to put me up for a couple of nights so I could rest my legs while a storm blew through. The Larsons were Mormons which was quite interesting for me as I’d never knowingly met a Mormon before.…
I left Paso Robles and was soon riding through very flat arid land very different from anything I’d experienced in North America thus far. To date it had pretty much been lush coastal areas, now I was seeing the effect of the long drought California had been suffering first hand. I also passed the junction…
Having got my bicycle fixed up in Ridgecrest I continued on to Death Valley, as the rain kept on falling. The roads were already flooding a little as the ground was not used to soaking up this much liquid. I was now riding from Ridgecrest down Searle’s Valley, the valley that runs perpendicular to Death…
