Neil and Sharon say Two Thumbs-up to:

American enthusiasm (it's very refreshing to see people so genuinely proud of their regional area), rural America, grand scenery, and all-you-can-eat buffets!

Our fully loaded bicycle tour across the United States began in the San Juan Islands off the west coast of British Columbia and Washington State. After San Juan, Lopez, and Orcas Island, we hopped a ferry to mainland Washington State. We cycled south, following the Pacific coast through Oregon, and into California to the Redwoods. At that point we had been on the road a month. When we inspected our giant USA map we discovered that cycling south wasn't making for much progress across the states. At that point, we headed north (we're slow learners) back into Oregon and rejoined the BikeCentennial trail, and followed it into Idaho and Montana. Yellowstone Park in Wyoming was brilliant, as were the Grand Tetons in Colorado. From Colorado we headed east through Kansas (great fireflies!), Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, then north along the Blue Ridge Parkway, to finally finish in Williamsburg, Virginia.

On subsequent bike touring trips to the United States we have been fortunate enough to catch the stunning autumn display in New York state while cycling through the Adirondacks, as well as Vermont, New Hampshire, and those amazing covered bridges in Maine.

© Lonely Planet says:

The US claims to be the greatest success story of the modern world: a nation made from an incredibly disparate assembly of people who, with little in common apart from a desire to choose their own paths to wealth or heaven, have rallied around the ennobling ideals espoused in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to forge the richest, most inventive and most powerful country on earth.

Despite polemicists who justly cite the destruction of Native American cultures, racism, imperialism and the shady operations of the CIA at the top of a long list of wrongdoings, half the world remains in love with the idea of America. This is, after all, the country that gave the world the right to the pursuit of happiness, free speech, electric light, airplanes, refrigerators, the space shuttle, computers, blues, jazz, rock and roll and movies that climax at the high school prom.

On a short trip, it can be hard work dismantling your preconceptions, since mythologizing and self-promotion are such rich American traits. So much of the country has been filmed, photographed, painted and written about that you need to peel back layers of representation to stop it looking like a stage setting.

This can make the country seem strangely familiar when you first encounter novelties like 24-hour shopping, bottomless cups of coffee, have-a-nice-day, drive-thru banks, TV evangelists, cheap gasoline, and newspapers tossed onto lawns. But you'd be foolish to read too much into this surface familiarity, since you only have to watch Oprah for half an hour to realize that the rituals and currents of American life are far more complex, seductive and bewildering than the most alien of cultures.

Come prepared to explore this foreignness rather than stay in the comfort-zone of the familiar and you'll find America has several of the world's most exciting cities, some truly mind-blowing landscapes, a strong sense of regionalism, a trenchant mythology, more history than it gives itself credit for and, arguably, the most approachable natives in the world.

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