II I plan to travel from where I am working in Mexico to the Columbia University School of Journalism, in New York City, where I am scheduled to speak about fisheries on April 1, 2007.
I plan to leave Alamos, Sonora, on February 17, and head to El Fuerte, Sinaloa. From there I will take the train to Chihuahua and then bike through Big Bend, Texas, back into Mexico, and renter Texas at Del Rio. I will cut straight across to the Gulf of Mexico,via San Antonio and Houston. I’ll hug the coast from Galveston, Texas to Mobile, Alabama, then across Georgia to Savannah and on up the coast to New York City. I will talk about my newest book in TV, radio, and newspaper interviews, particularly along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Seaboard, and I will speak at universities and do book signings at large and small bookstores all along the way.
The bike: an Orbit Caraway
February 15, 2007 Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
My bags are packed and I am working on lightening the load: filing down the toothbrush and all that. Getting the bike on the train in El Fuerte, Sinaloa is not a sure thing. Plan b is to cycle to Creel, in Chihuahua and take the bus from there to Chihuahua city, or Ojinaga. I'm putting a nobby tire on the rear wheel for the dirt roads between Alamos and El Fuerte.
Book gigs are materializing fast along the Gulf Coast, as yet not much for the Atlantic Seaboard. If you want to help set something up, please do.
Thanks to generous support from the folks in alamos I was able to buy a digital camera and will post photos as the opportunities arise.
February 16, 2007 Alamos, Sonora.
Last day in Alamos. running around dealing with last minute stuff. Dumping whatever I can out of the saddlebags knowing how much I hate every pound when I'm headed up hill.
Little party tonight. I plan to get up at 4:00 and start pedaling. I'm scared a bit, when I speculate about the road.
I'll be pedaling east while the earth spins me west and flies around the sun in an expanding universe. Who knows really, where they are or where they're going in the big picture?
2/17/07
El Fuerte Sinaloa
Spelling and grammar may be alittle off. hands and arms numb from bone jarring dirt road. But it was lovely, saw more horses than cars, every encounter turned into a conversation
A guy named Javier with a leaky tire. I have to pump it up every half hour he said. Do you have a patcvh. I gave him two. He said he had riden his bike all the way to Navajoa once. took him six hours. Met anothe rguy on a white mule, who was headed to Cerro Colorado to sell his catle. Anotehr guy , Rafael Corral, told me long story abotu a Spaniard who had one passed throgh tow. "He had all his stuff piled up on a little buro and he said he had walked all the way form Mexico City. He wanted to go all the way to Yecora, Sonra but we told him the mountains were too dangerous. to full of Mafia, narcos, but he went anyway. He cam back. the chidren loved him. He gave all his stuff to a local woman and fleww back to Spain." Or something like that. It took him a long time to tell it.
Such a road as this one I will probably not find again soon.
A guy going to San Vincente to sell his cattle.
More traffic on el Camino Real
I stopped inEl Chinal and bought a gallon of water. South of there I dumped my bike in one of the many sand pits in the road. no worse for wear. Supposed to be a bunch of guys on hoeses in the pic below. I´ll have to work on that later. Getting dark, gota get down to the train station and find a place to camp. All´s well.
Cuathemoc, Chihuahua. February 19.
Stayed at a hostel in El Fuerte and took off on Sunday morning, boarded the cheap train with my bike which I strapped down in the café car.
photo: Tim Morgan, www.timjamesmorgan.com
It{s a beautiful ride no doubt about it. A guy Tim, who I met on the train, took a bunch of pictures and is going to send them to me soon I hope so I can put them up on this page.
Haven’t yet figured out how to shrimnk mine so they fit. Haven’t tried to figure it out because by the time I get to these updates I’m exhausted.
I got off the train in Divisedero to sample biking in the Sirra Madre. That was humbling. I went up and down those hills for 2 hours and made just 10 miles, and was totally wiped out. Just before it was totally dark I put our my thumb and a guy and his wife in a truck with one headlight, no taillights and very squeaky brakes stopped to pick me up. I climbed in the back and watched the sliver of the new moon setting while he squealed down the hills. These hills are steep cliffs and the road snakes down them. He stopped and invited me to sit up front, and I did, though I liked it better when I didn{t have to watch what was coming at us.
Stayed in a 50 peso a night hotel in Creel and it was worth every centavo.
Took off this morning at 5:00 AM and cycled over a mountain in the dark, heard an owl. Sleet showers. I came to the intersection at Bocoyna and had to make a choice: the paved highway or the dirt road to Carichi and then north on paved road to Coathemoc. They say discretion is the better part of valor, but too much discretion doesn’t leave room for any valor. I took the dirt road and saw less than ten vehicles between Bocoyna and Carichi, luckily one of them was a bus! Because after the first ten miles I was back on the roller coaster and the road was so bad I had to brake all the way down the hills. I did that until I was reduced to pushing my bike up the hills. At one point I cam to and abandoned cabin and it was perfect timing because a sleet squall hit at that exact moment. I had breakfast.
The road from Creel to Carichi
Rest stop
About 10:50 I met two guys by the road with their bags. The bus is coming at 11:00 they told me. Does it have room for the bike? Sure.
The bus came rattling down one mountain and up the hill to where we waited. An old white school bus full of men in Cowboy hats and Tarajuamara wome in bright dresses. They took my bike aboard and by the time I got my panniers up the bike had been wheeled to the back and stowed. Another guy took my bags, stowed them and pointed to a seat.
I was so glad I got on that bus when I saw what I would have had to deal with. The road got worse, hills steeper longer. A tragedy neatly averted, and the ride was beautiful through the pine forests.
At Carichi we all got off the bus. Some of the women were talking to the bus driver. What do you mean you don{t have money? He asked them. I can’t give you a ticket. I’m not sure what they said. Something to the effect that money was not their issue and they needed a ticket to get on the bus to Cuathemoc. He gave them the tickets
He wanted 45 pesos from me but took 37 rather than try to break a 200 peso note.
I flew from Carichi to Cuathemoc with a 30 mph tailwind and lots of down hill through Mennonite farm country. I had a new appreciation for asphalt.
I had planned to take the train all the way to Chihuahua city yesterday and cycle the highway to Ojinaga. But I traded that plan for cycling the back roads and taking the bus to Ojinaga from here. That{s tomorrow{s plan.
I’ll keep you posted.
Austin, Texas February 25, 2007
I left the Hotel early and took the bus up to Chihuahua, on Tuesday 2/20, missed the Ojinaga bus by 5minutes, so waited a few hours for the next bus.. Spent the time tuning up my bike and getting organized, headed across the desert to the border and crossed into Presidio, Texas at 1:30. It took a while because the border patrol had to all come out and see my bike to believe Iwas really riding to NYC.
Loaded up with water and headed down the river road with a tail wind. Nice miles, passed the outward bound school and a small Apache reservation. Then the hills started gettin intense again, Chihuahua revisited. I made it to Lajitas in the last light of the day and pulled off into the weeds where I spent the night watching the big dipper spin counter clockwise around the north star. I don't sleep very well because of all the lactic acid built up in my muscles.
Got up before dawn, on Wednesday 2/21 and hit the road again. Made it to Terlingua and dumped as much gear as possible, including my rain gear: I figured the odds of getting rained on made it a safe bet. plus I had new light weight gear waiting for me in Austin.
When I looked at the mileage I had to make in order to make in order to get to San Antonio for my first event on the 24th I realized I would need help: either a huricane force tail wind or a ride part way. A guy named Henry Taylor found me pushing my bike up hill in Study Butte and gave me a ride to Panther Junction in Big Bend. From there I rode with a tail wind across 70 miles of desert, past he bones of dinosaurs, through the upper portion of Big Bend National Park.
The deset looked intimidating but once I got out in I started to really like it. As long as I had water and the bike functioned well and my body held up it was manageable. And I enjoyed the quiet miles. the rare car, the wave, everybody waves to each other out here.
I made it up to Marathon in time to restock at he french grocery, a little healthy food market. They didn't have the super glue I needed but Marcie called her fiancee James and he brough an open tube over and sold me a headlight to replace the one that broke on the road across Chihuahua.
"We get a lot of cross country bikers through here" said Marcie. "And we try to help out as much as we can." www.frenchcogrocer.com
Since I was well lit again I rode into the night, making a total of 105 miles beforre I slept.
While I was at Panther Junction, I saw a weather report on the bulletin board. It called for Southeast winds, and when I woke up early Thursday I felt it puffing in my face.
I started off for Sanderson with a light headwind thinking I'd be there by 9:00, but a flat tire and a strengthening head wind slowed me down. It takes a long time to pump up a tire with one of those little hand pumps!
I made Sanderson in time for Lunch, had some tacos, shaved and pushed on. I made 80 miles against the wind and put out my thumb in the last light of the day. Got a ride 40 more miles down the road. I still had 180 miles to go in less than two days in order to get to San Antonio on time.
I got the ride from Bobby, he looked Mexican but had a southern accent. "I never been to over there, " he said. "I got family right over the border.
I'd like to go over there someday but the federales make their own laws."
Bobby's grand father and great uncle came over during the revolution (1910-1920). "They rode with Villa," says Bobby. He tells a story a bit fadeed and blury like a photo from that era, with the corners torn and no dates on the back. Somehow his grandfather got between Pancho Villa and some gold, and when the shooting was over the old man and his brother crossed into the US.
" He never went back, not even for his mother'e funeral. He was afraid for his life."
That fear seems to have transcended three generations.
Bobby let me off at the High Bridge over the Pecos River. It was getting late. I rode on for another hour against a stiff wind, and made camp at 7:00 PM in a protected hollow, with real grass. It was the nicest spot I'd found in 3 nights.
bobby said the wind was going to die and there would be no rain, I planned to sleep for six hours and ride again. I lay down on the open ground and looked up at the moon; it hada halo around it, which where I come from means rain. But I trusted the local wisdom. At 2:00 AM I woke up with a fine mist wetting me and the wind still blowing hard out of the southeast.
I pitched my tent in the dark and stayed put till 6:00 and then struck camp and rode on until I was soaking wet. but it was warm so not too bad. After Riding for over three hours and making only ten miles. I had 180miles to ride in 28 hours. No way. I put out my thumb and got a ride into Del Rio with an old rancher named Les. He'd sold his stock he said when he realized the government was going to put him out of business. "I saw the hand writing on the wall. When they cut the wool incentive and made it so you couldn't hire a wet, and you can't, not around here, you can everywhere else int he country but not here, i knew it was time to get out.
"It costs you $30 to raise a sheep. And you sell it you get $25. Nobody could survive without the wool incentive and cheap labor.
As we drive through the empty landscape Les points to the land "there's seven ranches have sold out around me in the last ten years. I'm surrounded by one man no who owns 95,000 acres. And he bought it all sight unseen."
A little while later we come to where swathes have been bulldozed out of the creosote scrub. "That's LOTS." says Les. "That land wasn't worth $30 an acre but now it sells for $20,000 cuz it's lots."
It was still raining when Les let me off in Del Rio, so I found a little cafe and stayed there for a long time, drying out and waiting for the wind to die down.
Rainy Del Rio, Texas
The rain petered out and I left Del Rio at 1:00PM bound for Uvalde 70 miles east. I headed into the wind, blowing from a slightly better angle. It finally dropped out at dusk and I made it to Uvalde by 9:30 and got a hotel. Next Morning, fair wind. I left Uvalde at 7:00 and made it to San Antonio at 3:00 PM. My host Carolyn Wells picked me up outside the city. We stopped at her house to clean up and went to the Twig where I signed some books and aranged for a newspaper interview.
Signing books at the Twig Booksho, San Antonio, Texas.
We then hooked up with Eileen Murphy from Austin and I loaded the bike into her car and here I am now. Heading over to the Spin Room to talk about fish.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 Houston Texas.
I am back in the world, resting, eating Texas Bar-B-Q, and navigating Houston traffic on my bike. Had a great (Wild Alaska) salmon dinner with Eileen Murphy, her husband Mark and Daughter Ava on Sunday and then went over to the spin room. It was too nice a day to come inside but we managed to get a few interested folks in there and had a good discussion.
My cousin Cole Molyneaux and his girlfriend Katherine Feser picked me up and drove me back to Houston, with a stop for my first Bar-B-Q.
Yesterday’s talk at Rice was great, a full house and a lively exchange. Plus free food and beer (for those who drink it) afterwards. Sold a few books and ran into an old friend Rick Shreiber from Drexel Hill, PA where I grew up. Everybody warned me about riding in Houston, but I saty mostly on the quiet streets and so far so good. When I do ride on the busy streets, folks give me room. It’s much better than I expected.
I was supposed to be on the radio this morning, but the interview got rescheduled. For tomorrow (I think.) I rode around town picking up a few things I needed, and signed copies of my book in every bookstore I came across.
I’m feeling ready to ride. Heading for Galveston tomorrow. 40 miles and a bridge that says: no bikes.
Hmmm. We’ll try to cross that bridge when we come to it.
Bike Yoga: A note on long distance riding. I have tendancy to sink down between my shoulders and put a lot of weight on my hands, which makes them numb. I find it really helps my endurance to use yoga principles when riding. I try to remember to roll my shoulders back and stretch out my spine. The more I'm able to do this the better I feel, and the further i can go. But it takes focus.
I also notice that my brain does funny things wehn I pedal fro hours on end. Like I find myself singing How much is that doggy in the window the one with the waggedy tail or waggly tail, over and overe and over, just those two lines. I figure the part of my brain that controls my motor activity has so little to think about when I'm pedaling that it just goes into a hypnotic sort of state.
It's been a few days since my websitewent down, and the company is taking a while to fix it.
I spent a few days in Spoke at Rice on Monday and taped an interview with Ernesto Aguilar at KPFT Pacifica Radio, on WEdnesday morning. In between I hung out with my cousin's father in law (sort of) Phil Feser, a retired dentist, Phil is a bigtime fisherman and has spent a lot of time onGalveston bay, But I don't go down there much any more since they got this flesh eating disease, Vibrio vulnificus. It's killed about 50 people. A friend of mine had it he scratched his leg just a little bit while he was fishing,. He went home took a shower and laid down in his recliner, and before you know it his leg was this big," he says holding his hands apart much wider than any leg should be.
"He tried to show me pictures afterward but I didn't want to see it. I'm not saying I'll never go back ther, but I'm very cautious about it.
I left thos folks on Wednesday, afternon and drove down to Galveston with Rick Shreiber, we had a quiet signing at Midsummer books, and I got a surprise from my family, a night in a fancy hotel and a dinner. Rick joined me for dinner as did our mutual friend Mickey McLaughlin by way of a cell phone placed on the table. Next day I headed for Louisiana, Made it up to Winnie Texas, and crossed the border the next day into the hurricane ravaged Cameron Parish.
Enough of that road side camping.
I spent the night with a swarm of mosquitoes and wished I had not sent the body of my tent home to save on weight. at times during the night, great horned owls perched above me in the naked branches of the live oaks. At one point two came by and hooted ther for a while, then a lone one. There was no shortage of campsites in the places where houses used to be.
We talked about the owls, the guy said there was an uncommon number of them in the area this winter. and the hurricane. "We lost over 90percent of our houses around here to Rita," he said. "All the way in to the bridge. They say it was downgraded to a category 4 but I 'll tell you it was a 5 when it hit here. We didin't lose nobody though. Folks around here gto out. This area got hit by hurricane Audrey in 195? and everybody lost family, now they get out.
I peddeled 70 or 80 miles on Saturday and camped in Jennings, LA. A nice campsite on the dike of a dry rice field and I slept for 11 hours. Frost on my sleeping bag when I got up. no mosquitoes to be sure. I put my extra socks on my hands as mittens and rode up to a breakfast place.
My waitress was left handed, they always are. She was a Katrina survivor from New Orleans. "I went back in two days after, with a relief truck," she said and I cried all the way in. There were still people on their roofs, waiting for provisions that never came. Some waited two weeks. They took markers and wrote their social security numbers on their arms so people would know who they were, when they found theri bodies.
"Imagine climbing up and up in you house thinking the water's gonna stop and it never does, till you find yourself in your attic trying to use whatever you gto to break through your roof."
I left there and pedaled into a cold wind all day past rice fields and rice fields turned into crawfish farms. Some guys told me that most peopel were turning to crawfish because the price of rice was so low. I've been in crawfish country for two days now and haven't had one yet. Maybe tonight.
I speak today at the University of Louisana at Lafayette, the students get extra credit for attending so I expect a good turnout. though i may not sell many books.
March 6, 2007 Baton rouge, LA
Had a good talk in Lafayette yesterday, hung out with Professor Griff Blakewood, who had a lot to say about the paradigm shift. The need to abandon the economic system that is driving so much global destruction, the need to reduce our apetite for energy rather than tear up the planet lookign for new ways to produce it. "The revolution is coming in 2012," he said. "keep the faith."
Okay. But I wrote back later that I waiting for the Evolution.
I have a lot of miles ahead of me, the biggest push of the trip. 80 to New orelaens, 80 more to Gulfport and then 500 in 6 days.
The pedaling is so mindless, I just drift along. I miss my family but it is one of those endurance things where I just shunt the feelings off somewhere because there is not a hell of a lot else I can do.
Somebody asked me what the connection between the cycling and the book was and I finally came up with an answer. Remember the monks who yused to set tehmselves on fire during the Vietnam War? They brought attention to the insanity by doing something really insane. That's sort of what I'm doing, I'm acting out in the face of the insanity of how the world is operating, the endless cycle of destruction , and not just of oceans.
I prefer cycling because my odds of survival are much higher than with setting myself on fire.
I do yoga most days, more often than not. If I miss in the morning because of frost or mosquitoes tehn I do some stretches late in the day, though not the full routine.meditation is intersting too. It's very hard to stop the spinning wheels. One thing I notice is that my beahvior and thoughts manifest in my life. "Our thoughts materialize spontaneously" I realize how true this is and how important.
I work hard to stay positive to not give voice to negative thoughts emotions. They are fabrications. I'm alive! Life is here! It's good!
Sounds hokey but it's true.
I feel like I'm back in the groove today.
I'm hanging out in the office of Stacy Sauce in Baton Rouge right now. She came and got my in Lafayette last nigh and has been running me around town getting ready for my talk at LSU and restocking my sardine supply. Cold nights, so I picked up a polrfleece jacket fro $2 at a thrift store. WAITING FOR MORE PICS< I"LL GET THEM UP SOON>
Stacy got me my first crawfish lunch which i ate on the way to the talk at LSU. It was good. At teh talk we hada good debate with a couple of guys who had invested their education dollars into learning how to farm carnivorous finfish. It was fun, Afterwards I went back to Stacey's and we finshed off the crawfish.
For more of the journal go to www.doryman.com
March 7, New Orleans, LA
I lost my notebook today, and am grateful to have kept this journal, though there were a lot of little details in the notebook that I need to write down asap, plus adresses and phone numbers, but most of that I have in other places. So all is well.
I left Baton rouge at 3:45 AM and arrived in New Orleans at about 1:00 PM took some time to take a few pictures when I got into town. Lots of debris still in the neighbor hoods houses boarded up, otheres being renovated. Lots of work here and the place is still hurting. I met a guy on the street near where I was taking picutres. "You gonna fix that place up?" he asked. I felt a odd. Like maybe I should, considering I'd taken a picture of it and all. but I told him no, I was just passing through. He said he had been there during Katrina, "It was a disaster. Cars upside down, houses falling down. everything you see under water.
I asked him about the ninth ward. He leaned toward me. "That's over that way, but it's gone, all gone. Houses, churches banks, its allwiped out."
I'm only here for a few hours more, and then on to Gulfoport. I was hoping to hang out in New Orleans but my schedule got jammed up again and I have got to ride.
Disking under surgar cane, near a chemical plant on the way to New Orleans
Fixing up a house in New Orleans
"You gonna fix this one?"
March 8, 2007 Gulfport Mississippi
I walked around New Orleans for a while looking to buy a new notebook but could not find a bookstore or stationary stor, ended up with a composition book from Walgreens, sokay.
I rode over to algiers in the evening, took the canal street ferry. Had a great time and sold 11 books. The event was at mike Lane's house, a pretty nice place ina gated community on the south side of the mississippi River, I took the Canal street ferry over.
Those guys were pretty well educated on the issues the discussion got deeper than usual. Afterwards Charlis Smith, a co-founder of the Gumbo Alliance, gave me a ride ten miles out of town to the east. Then I rode. And it was a beautifaul and strange ride. the moon was out and I was pedaling along and empty road through the sm\wamps, all around me I could see fragments of the torn up world. And then I passed into and area that wasvery messed up, just south of Lake Ponchartrain. Houses were slid out all cockeyed inthe marsh. Boats lay at odd agnles in the mud and beside the road. the trees were bent. And as I passed through this moonlit wreckage I heard singing, and I came upon a woman, maybe in her 30's by the sound of her voice, marching stumbling down the road in a long winter coat and a tall sort of pill box hat singing, "sing a song of love. sing. sing. sing. sing..." and we passed. she never missing a beat and me never slowing down but feeling like I was moving deeper into some sort of apocolyptic dream, and then I cam around a bend and nearly ran into and otter who happened tobe sitting in the road doing nothing.
I tried to sleep a while by the lake, there was a breez that I thought would drive the bugs away but no such luck. I suffocated for two hours and started riding again. The bridge was out from Bay St. louis to Pass christian, MS. a sign said the ferry was closed but I went down there anyway and itwas running. 
REbuilding the bridge at Bay St. Louis, MS
went across to Pass Christian and that place was still very blasted looking. Basketball hoops laid down, trees toppled, carpets and curtains hanging from the branches. And then wow, a brand new ten storycondominium in hte midst of it.
i met a fisherman, Richard Bosarge, who told me the story of how the storm spared his boat. "I put it up in a bayou not far from here, near a friend's house. I tied ti with twolong ropes to some pine trees, and then we left." He said he came back three days after the stormand expected to find his boat gone. "I drove out there as far as I could till I came to a house that had floated offits foundation and sat right on te road, a whole house. I walked a mile from there I mean it was all climbing over trees and under branches. I came to my friend's house it it was gone and I figred there ya go I loved fishing but it was all over. ThenI looked and I see the boat sitting there with just a few pine branches on it notheing wrong withit at all."
Richard Bosarge Pass Christian, MS
Richard got the boat going and manged to get permission from the Coast guard to bring it into one of the harbors. I was a regular Forest Gump. I went out and started catching 500 pounds a night and selling them for $6.00 a pound. I was making $3000 a night. But then they kicked me out of that harbor, so that was a short story. Then Imanged to get back into this harbor, the harbor master told me not to but I bullshited him andtiedup. I was fishing again. I'd go out and it felt pretty goodout there. but when I looked to shore it was dark, just a few lights here and there running on genreators and it made ya sick, when ya came back in to see what it looked like. ButI had the boat piled with boxes of shrimp and I see these two guys comin down in a pickup truck. I said, 'what're you looking for? They said shrimp. so I said look here, this place was a mess big sand piles everywhere, I said you help me carry these shrimp over to that pickup truck and I'll give you all you want, so they helped me and we got talking and I cometo find out they were the harbormasters father and brother. So I give thenm a big pile of shrimp fro him and I never had another problem.
Richard said his son was into fishing and went out with him whenever he could. "He can builda net, figure out those tapers all that. he wrote a book about it." Richard bought a copy of my book. and heade fro Gulfport. I went down the road a few more miles myself and then stopped to eat, and then fell asleep.
I almost missed my gig. I called Lee Emergy at MGCCC Jeff Davis Campus and she said, "If you're in Long beach I'm afraid it's going to take all the time you've got to get here. You better pedal fast. I arrived 5 minutes late and a bit sweaty, but we had a good talk and I sold a few books. I reduced the price for students. $10. that got a couple to bite.
The bridge is out in biloxi too so I have some navigating to do to get around the bay there. and then on to Alabama.
Fort Walton FL, March 10
Slept for 8 hour's at Lee Emery's house in Biloxi, left there at 1:00 AM and pedaled around the bay. Stopped fro a burger at an all night restaurant near the highway, and for a waffel at waffle house. I like waffle house and have been geting a waffle pretty much every mnorning. I pedaled a lot yesterday, passed throught the big ship building town of Bayou Le baitre Alabama, crossed over the long bridge to Dauphin Island. The bay was full of oyster tongers. I had talked to a few on the way through the little fishing towns, they siad two men working together would get about 800 pounds a day, they got 25 cents a pound for them. Tough work.
I met one old guy standing in front of a convenience stor, he had his oyster skiff trailered behind his old truck.
"The government don't understand," he said. "I can't collect my social security till I'm sixty five, but doing this kind of work I ain't gonna live that long."
gotta go, made gulf breeze FL 8 PM bought a tent for $100 and 4 copies of "Swimming" no more mosqioto probs. pedaling well, in the groove, knees good for 100 miles a day.
Jesup, Georgia March 13
Been riding hard to get to Savannah no Thursday morning, passed through a lot of country. I left the coast at Destin Florida and headed inland, its been four days of beautiful riding down country roads through farm country. I stopped at a smoke house in Bristol, FL hoping to buy some venison jerky, but the owner, Craig Shuler, was all out. so he gave me a couple pounds of wild pig sausage, a couple pounds of aligator meat and a big bag of boiled peanuts. That kept me going for a couple of days.
I passed through Quincy and a bunch of kids hung out with me in a park while I ate some of the sausage and they could hardly believe I had ridden a bike all the way from <Mexico, but I gave the my website and hopefully they'll see this. I forgot to take their picture. All sitting around a picnic table on a Sunday afterenoon.
I passed through Coon-bottom, and old man selling collard greens. "You need to cook'm?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "You cut'm up fry'm in some fat back."
I pedaled on past a dead armidillo, and through an extensive forest plantation, "Posted: no trespassing-Kate Ireland." It turns out she is the chairman of a thing called talltimbers.org. It was well fenced and no chance of camping.
I made it across the Georgia border at the end of the day and bought some strawberries from and thin old man by the side of the road. "Where you goin'?" he wanted to know. I told him. He looked at me a minute. "You'll be alright," he said.
Little benedictions like that help a lot after a long day on the road. I looked for a campground he told me about but could not find it and at 9:00 I rolled the bike into the woods, threw down the tent and sleeping bag and crashed hard. No trouble sleeping.
Tractor graveyard, Pavo, GA
Made another good day yesterday, just cranking out the miles, stopped for some homemade donuts, again to fix a flat. and again to fix another flat. Tires getting thin. Stopped to get some snack and water at a coanoe rental place. They were selling a book someone recommended to me along the way: "The Ecology of a Cracker Childhood." I left but after a mile realized I needed to buy that book. So I turned around and went back and bought it, there were some folks there from Maine and they bought a copy of Swimming, so it worked out great.
Banks Lake, Lakeland, GA
I camped early last night near Cogdell, GA, and broke camp early too. 3:30 AM I know that coyotes won't attack me, but sitting out in hte middle of nowhere with them howling all night... I gotta go.
Savannah, GA March 15, Spoke on Fox TV this morning. weather changing. St.Patricks day coming, my son Asher's birthday. Spent two nigth here, went to an art opening for a show by Jake Meders and Zig Jackson, two Native American artists here at SCAD, Hung out with Julie Ferreira who has worked hard lingin up gigs for me. I'm a bit worn out today and will post more tomorrow.
Beaufort, SC, March 16
Julie's birthday, have a happy one. It took me a long time to pull myself away from Savannah, I went down to look the show over again, in the quiet, and in the daylight. I saw it better and it meant more having talked with Jake more teh day after the opening. He builds nests from branches, and was talking about how the places he goes fro materials are getting developed and he has to go find new places. "Like the birds"
Savannah is a beautiful city and after the TV show I went back and hung out in front of the Sentient Bean cafe, talking with students and drinking designer water. I wish I had known about Svannah before, it's a young vibrant town, overarched by tall old trees. Everybody was getting psyched for the big St. Patricks Day parade/party. "During the day its pretty wild, but at night--total debauchery," said James, a Rutgers student in town on spring break. "there'll be 700,000 people here, you gotta stay," said somebody else. "Just to experience it one time."
I was sorely tempted but my need for total debauchery isn't what it used to be, and I have to be in Wilmington NC on Tuesday. I'm changing bikes. Fuji Bikes is sponsoring me with a new road bike. I plan to put a delta rack on it and light weight panniers. Then I'll trim my gear down to the barest of necessities and make the final leg up tp NYC.
Late in teh afternoon I went down to River st. in Savannah and while the vendors were setting up there food boothes I rolled my bike onto the ferry for SC. I made amazing time up to Beaufort, arrived just after dark ,but really tired, I got a room agian and slept till 8AM.
I'll be heading up to Charleston today, and will catch the paradee there. Tomorrow is my son Asher's birthday.
March 21, 2007, Swansboro, NC
I broke camp at Gradener's corner at 4:00 AM and started down the empty road. I was surprised to see a campfire in the woods less than a mile from where I camped. Someone else was living that way, but I did not stop to find out who. I rolled into Charleston just in time to catch the St. Paddy's Day parade, a line of little girls wearing kilts and curly hair wigs were step dancing in the street. "do you want to see some dancing?"
Yes! And bagpipes, th escottish ones
St. Paddy's Day , Cahrleston, SC
What's left of Fort Sumpter, The civil war battered the walls down from 50 feet to 20.
Through a string of connections I hooked up with Fred Moore and he took my gear over to his house while I pedaled light out to fort sumter, where my great great grandfather was in command immediately after the Civil War. It was a cold day to be out on the water. I walked around the battered fort, the big spiked cannons painted shiny black. The tattered flags preserved in museum cases. South Carolina: the Palmetto and the crescent. "It's not a moon," Fred told me later. "It's a crescent."
I went over to the house afterward and cleaned up. I met Fred's daughters Coreyanne and Maddie, a promising artist, and son Branch, who goes fishing in Canada every summer with my Uncle Pete, who used to take me fishing to the same place. Fred and his wife Beth invited me to come down to the green beer party at Dunlevey's but when I got there the crowd was too thick. Icouldn't put myself into that mosh pit. So I went next door for an ice cream instead. And then back to the house where I hung out with Fred's son Branch, ate hot dogs and watched part of a movie. Branch looked the Canadian fishing place up on Google Earth: Dog Lake, near battersea Ontario.
I left there at 6 AM Sunday morning. It was still dark and I pretty near froze heading north into the wind. I stopped at the Sewee environmental learning center and met two of the last red wolves in the world. They were trying to re-establish them in the wild but the two I saw were 13 and 15 years old and their fur was all crisp and curly the way it gets on old huskies. They came over to the fence when they saw me, sniffing for food I imagine, but when they realized I had none they went back and laid down under the pines. I took the walk along the board walk through swampy country, and tall trees. The ranger at the learning center gave me a book about sharks, a very nice book at that with detailed pictures of all the sharks found in SC waters. I pedaled on, stopping a lot as I do when I'm working into a headwind. I got up to Huntington Beach State Park at eh end of the day, and rented a campsite for 18 bucks. The showers were hot, and man did that feel good.
A causeway led across a swampy bay out to the park, big signs said do not feed the alligators. But I did not see any gators. Too cold maybe. Lots of herons and egrets out in the mud. Laura and Evan, a couple from Tennesee took the site next to me and we talked for a while and I helped them with their tent, they had just bought it. "this looks pretty small," I said. "Is it a one person?"
"it's a two person, said Laura. "but you got to know your person."
Evan and Laura
That night the raccoons came out in force, unzipped my pannier and raided my gorp. They were very bold on the one hand, but very genteel as we said later. I mean the unzipped things rather than tear them apart. And when one came up to my tent to see wht was in it and I said I was, it just turned and left in a way that you could have almost heard it say, "excuse me."
They have a job to do, keeping the park clean and they work hard at it.
Next morning I had breakfast with Evan and Laura. Laura is studying to be a teacher. "I want to farm, she said. And teaching I fugure you can work and then farm in the summers." They bought my second to the last copy of "swimming in circles, " carried all the way from Lafayette, LA. Later we walked down to the beach.
The beautiful Atlantic, it is the ocean, the one I think of when I hear the word. The steely gray blue water that I grew up with. I got out of there late, not wanting to freeze again, and had variable winds up through myrtle beach and on to Wilmongton, NC. I got a flat near Bolivia, about 30 miles north of the SC border. Changed it in about 10 minutes, a guy in a pick up truck stopped to see if I needed help. "No I said. I got this fixed, and a friend of mine is going to come pick me up when I get close." But the guy was going to Wilmington and I could have caught a ride with him rather than get my old friend john sherm to come out. I was tired, not thinking—more proof: I went into Bolivia to a gas station to finish pumping up my tire. I found one of those combination vacuum cleaner/air machines, and put 50 cents in the vacuum cleaner, instead of the air. It sounded funny and I could not figure out why it no air was coming out. I kept putting the air hose on that tire thinking damn, what am I doing wrong. Finally this long haired guy in a camaro comes over and says, you got the vacuum cleaner on.
Thing worked great once I put money in the right slot.
I Talked to john on the cell phone: "Your bike is here." He said. A day ahead of schedule, too good.
John Sherm and his son Mike came and got me at the junction of routes 17 and 87 not far from Wilmington, and took me to John's house. I watched "Dancing with the Stars with john, his wife Ginny and their sons Mike and John. Then we watched some isanity about a guy from kazakstan, Barit of something like that. Very strange, sometimes funny. I went to bed.
In the morning john and I got up early and put the new Fuji together. It was a great morning, working with a guy I have know since childhood. Thirteen years older than me,
John was a Navy fighter pilot and I grew up listening to stories of his adventures. Flying alongside Mig fighters above the med, and having to eject when his plane malfunction during takeoff from an aircraft carrier.
For me it was one of the most pleasant mornings of the trip. It took a while to get things tuned up right, and then we had to get my slightly bigger Orbit Caraway into the box the fuji cam in. John came up with the idea of deflating the tires to make it fit. Bingo.
He will ship the bike on to Philly later.
So I took off after lunch, and headed for Swansboro, via the Bike Arcade, the Fuji dealer in Jacksonville, NC, 37 miles north. I called them at quarter to 3. "If you can get here by 6, we'll take care of you," said owner Renee Thurmond. "but you're 30 miles away."
I walked in the door at 5:30. I was actually there at 5:10, but I stopped up the street for a burger and fries.
That was over 30 miles is 2hrs 25 minutes. Amazing time, I flew on the FUJI, half the weight of my Orbit, and no friction. Renee tuned up the rear deraileur, no charge, and I bought new tail light and mirror. We hung out talking while the traffic died down.I got down to Swansboro at dark and now I
am staying at Fred Moore's childhood summer home, a good place to sit out the east wind that is howling in the eaves. I plan to stay here 2 nights and then head for a booksigning at Virginia Beach.
Had breakfast this morning at Yana's, one of those great breakfast palces you find every once in a while, cozy, a fantastic Spanish Omelette and friendly folks.
March 22, 2007 Pine Knoll Shores, NC
Headed up the outer banks now. Talked to Fred on the phone before i left. "That house has been through some hurricanes," he said. "One picked it up and set it on the highway. A coke bottle that was sitting on the counter never tipped over."
According to Fred a bunch of squatters once inhabited Emerald Isle, and on the way up the isalnd I saw Squatter's Camp road. "They kicked'm all out a long time ago," said Fred.
I spent all day yesterday, resting and eating. I'm down to 115 pounds, operating on a calorie deficit.
With the my new Fuji Roubaix RC, on Fred Moore's dock, Swansboro, NC
Roadkill report. I saw a dead otter by the road in South Carolina, and a fawn. many opossums. I have found and left, numerous tools: wrenches, pliers, vice grips, knives, spoons (one of which I did pick up to replace my plastic one) rope, nice rope, rolls of string, a complete set of keys on a fancy key chain, very clean they ahdn't been there long.
The power of positive thinking is very real. I wrote about it earlier but the further I go the more apparent it becomes that staying positive is the way to go. I was buying a needle and some thread yesterday to repair my threadbare pants and I told the woman at the store, Marion, what I was doing. She came out from behind the counter and gave me a big hug. Felt great. People have been extremely genrous all along the way. I have no complaints and if I did I'd rethink them.
I'm cruising on my new Fuji, compliments of Patrick Cunnane, getting used to it. I weighed the whole thing before I left this morning, bike and gear cames in at 38 pounds. I have to be more carefull about the road, avoiding cracks and bad bumps.
Good Advice!
March 27, 2007 Lewes, Delaware
Haven't been able to post in a while but I've been taking notes. I went up the outside road from Fred's, along the shore of North Carolina, emerald Isle, Pine knoll shores, stopped at the library ther and the librarian Jenil Miller strongly advised me to stop at the NOAA research lab in Beaufort. Pronounced Bo-fort, as opposed to Sotuh Carolina's Beaufort, which is pronouced Bew-fort. I rolled into the lab at around noon and a fisheries biologist, John, guided me inside and hooke dme up wioth James Morris, whose family owns a clam farm nearby.
James Morris, with a tank full of red porgies.
"These are the first red porgies spawned in captivity in the U.S.," he told me. He said he came from a fishing family."I had my own 40 foot shrimp trawler when I was 16 and I fished it for ten years, all through college."
But the state of the fisheries has forced the family into aquaculture. "About 15 years ago my father realized that we were'nt going to continue to make it shrimping, and he said we're going to have to look elsewhere for a living. That's wehn we got the clam lease." The family now has a hatchery and extensive lease in Sealevel, about 30 miles north of Beaufort.
While a number of offshore longliners were being overhauled in a nearby yard, James recalled a definign moment a few years before. "I was out on the clam lease with my father and uncle, and we were talking about coastal development, all the people movingto the shore, and how people felt it was threatening our heritage. and my uncle said, 'what heritage?The right to go out there and bust up your hands trying to make a living?. we have to accept what is, and people here need something.'"
Like a lot of places along the coast, people turn in desperation to aquacultuer and tourism, the next phases of exploitation for decliiing ecosystems.
I went to see the clam lease on James's recommendation but I got up there too late in the night. i went to the end of the road, to Atlantic, NC where the welcome sign says "Making a Living From the Sea." But doing it differently now than when the now peeling sign was first.painted.
The lights of the outer banks
Ocracoke light.
The Fuji at Hatteras
Bodie Island
Oh boy, I just wrot ethe whole thing from Cedar Island to Salisbury and lost it all on this computer, such is life when you operate this way. The short version: I rode in the night across along causeway up to Ceadar Island took the ferry across the next day, after getting a free camp site from an old guy up on the island. Beuatiful day, fair wind and I sailed up the outerbanks, photographing lighthouses and rescuing baby turtles along the way, everynow and then stop to climb the dunes and look at the sea.
I made it all the way up to Va beach got new pants! some groovy outdoors tyupe pants from Outdoor Research they cost $65 and already have bicycle grease stains on them. The others, tattered patched and stained, went into the trash righ there in the store.
I did my booksigning at Barnes and Noble in Va Beach. I sold a few books and had a lot of good conmversations, in particular there was Robert Ray, and Econiomic development consultant, who bough my book after talking to me for a while, and I was flattered; A guy came up looked at both books and bought them both; And a young woman, Corey Webre, who worked at the store, I hope they all get a lot from the reading.
Thge 25 mph north wind changed my plan to ride up through VA and take the ferry to Crisfield MD. Instead I hitched a ride across the bay bridge tunnel with a trucker named Adam Koch. Adma was a real surprise. first off trucks don't pick up hithcers any more so when he pulled over I though nothing of it. But then he blew the horn and got out and stood by the trailer with his arms folded looking up the road at me. I got it!
WE put my bike up in the back on a bed of lettuce, he was trucking produce out of FLorida, and I climbed into the cab. Adam is a book in himself, a foremer scuba diver, cook on a resaearch vessel, etc. At 38 he has been getting alot oout of life. "I'm running for judge of (someplace) Indiana, he said and handed me a card. Besides trucking he alos does domestic violence counseling and runs an education program on the subject that goes around local jhigh schools and colleges. "I don't push religion, as you can tell by my f***ing language, but this country is losing its moral integrity." Adam and I talked about the various problems we were both making our efforts to resolve. It was a good ride and I took it to Pocomoke city MD.
I camped in the middle of the woods but these teens pulled in right nearby, ahead of a siren that went on by. They got out of the car laguhing, two boys an two girls, tipped over a porta potty just for fun and ran into the woods only yards from my tent. They never saw me they hung out there for an hour, going back anf forth to the car, moving it. finally they left. later I heard somthnign comming through the woodds. I sat up to see a opossum heading right for me, but he tore off the opposite way as soon as he saw me.
I met mey brother Jim the next morning in Salisbury. "You look tired," he said.
Jim and his wife Carol had brough his bike anbd he rode the afternoon with me, while Carol went on ahead. It was a beautiful day for it. Temperature around 60, fair wind. We rolled down relatively quiet country roads, often side by side on the wide shoulder, chatting about nothing in particular. At a crossroads we asked an old man for directions and got an hour of stories.
His wife came out of the nearby house, "Where you boys going? where'r your wives?"
She pointed to the old man. "We've been married 67 years." His name was Harry Morris, his wife was Ida Mae. "This town was started by a preacher, john Melson, all this around here is Melson. He had a slave. After the Civil War when they freed the slaves they said to'm we're going out west. you can come along. so they went out there and took the colored fela with them."
They took turns telling stories, how their daughter was boorn just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. the stills that used to be around there. "you could'nt get sober enough to get drunk. The revenuers would com around They used to blow them up you'd find staves and barrel hoops up in the trees.
They were old friend s of Frank Perdue the chicken magnate. "Oh yes we knew Frank he grew up around here, Harry used to play ball with him."
He's 90 years old, Ida mmae said. Is that all I replied, and he laughed. Last year my daughters got me a weedeater, this year they got me a vacumm cleaner, and if I live to be 91 they're going to get me a combine," said Harry. "Thye are not," said Ida Mae.
Harry has had a stroke and apparently spents a lot of time standing where we found him, bundle up in his winter jacket. "he's cold all the time." said Ida Mae.
Theri neighbor Billy cam over and looked at our bikes. Thats a nic ebike he said of the new FUji, must've cost $1800. That's what it would cost. I said.
Billy said Harry was known as the mayor of Melson. Ida Mae pointed to Jim and I these two say they're brothers, they don't look at all alike. Maybe from different mothers. No we told tehm. we are full brothers, people have always said that about us, that we didn't lok alike. We went over to look at Billy's bikes a 1939 bransd I can't remember the name of aand a ROss.
We met Carol at an antique shop in Millsboro, DE and that's where Jim ended his ride, 27 miles. He's was the first person to join me on this ride, and probably the only.
I rode opn into Lewes and got a hotel, and slept a long time.
Cape Henlopen, Delaware
The last post: I can’t remember where I last posted. Lewes, Delaware.
Seems so far away. I went to a movie, on Tuesday,3/27: “300” it kept my attention for a couple of hours. It was violent but in a stylized way. I lost my watch on the way there, but I turned around and found it a half mile behind me in the gutter, unharmed.
After the movie I cycled out to Cape Henlopen State Park and camped in the woods, spent an uneventful night, slept well. Got up early and rode down to the beach. A couple of guys were suiting up to ride the little waves, better than nothing.
The sunrise was worth the trip, and I took a couple of photos of a tanker steaming out ofDelaware Bay.
I headed up the road to catch the ferry over to Cape May, NJ. At the terminal I rolled my bike inside and got talking to a guy from the ferry, he was asking me about the bike and the trip when we heard a woman telling two other cyclists, “no bikes inside.”
As they pushed their bikes outside, I saw their grease stained pants and figured they were touring. I took my bike outside for the sake of solidarity and we made the hour and a half crossing together. Johnna and Jason, a young couple on spring break from a Temple university in Philadelphia. But we had a good chat. They were taking a little tour around Maryland Delaware and New Jersey. They were on road bikes, he was pulling a trailer and she had a special back pack for cycling, though it did not look too comfy. They like my rig: the post rack and ultra light panniers. We left the fery together and cycled into Cape May. I left them at the bridge and headed over to Wildwood Crest. I was on my old turf, traveling roads I had traveled as a boy and a young man back in the 60s and 70s. I turned around and went back into Cape May, had lunch at the lobster house, and talked to Becky Goldburg from Environmental Defense and Ellen Pikitch of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science. A conference call about our panel at Columbia. At the end they said, “see you Saturday” Saturday? I thought our panel was on Sunday. That kind of changed my riding time.
I went over to the Crest and hooked up with my old friend Mickey McLaughlin, we hung out at his house, a far cry from the dump we once shared in 1977, and rehashed all the old war stories. Then headed over to the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor. Eileen Kajetske, set up a talk and signing that went very well. While there I met Roger Wood, a Turtle expert at the Wetlands institute and he took me to the turtle lab where he was hatching terrapin eggs out and letting the young go in the wild. They had a project where they stripped eggs from turtles that had their shells damaged by cars running over them. I told him about the turtles on the outer banks and he suggested they might have been box turtles.
Another old friend Greg Paninos came down to the signing from Philly and I hitched a ride back with him, aside from cycling into the city to meet PJ Cunnane at Fuji USA, and another 20 mile ride to Channel 6 for an interview, the bike trip was over. I did not have time to do all I had to do in Philly and make it to Columbia sturday morning.
To see the interview, go to the website below and click on "Books: author investigates aquaculture."
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/index?section=amusement&id=4661217
On Thursday night I made my best presentation ever at a private siging at my brother jim’s house, and on Friday afternoon, after a great interview with Sarah Bloomquist at Channel 6, my father and I slid the fuji roubaix into a box to await shipment to me in Maine.
It was sad putting that bike away, like the last curtain call of a theater production, of parting with a brother in arms. The long days of laying down the miles were over. The nights in the woods, the headwinds and tailwinds, the sardine lunches were all done. (for now)
I picked up some bookmarks designed by Carol Molyneaux, my sister-in-law, and packed up for the train to NYC. My mother took me to 30th street station in Philly, a building that several generations of Molyneaux’s have worked on, setting marble.
I slept all the way to Penn Station and then walked all the way up to Columbia on 116th St., stopping at the hotel to check my bags.
The panel went well, my presentation was not as tight as it was in Philly but the questions coming back indicated that a lot of the journalists there “got it.”
One asked though, whether I was saying the only viable form of fishing was small boats. And I said there should be a hierarchy of access to fish stocks with small local operations feeding local markets at the top, not the bottom. I though later that if the depreciation of natural capital, the destruction big trawlers do to fish stocks and the ecosystems that support them, was figured into the business plans of big trawler owners, they would not be profitable. It’s only by cooking the books that these boats were ever built, and cooking the books, by ignoring depreciation of natural capital is the only thing that makes industrial scale aquaculture look profitable. We had a feast that night at the Nocha Mexicana, compliments of Anya Schiffrin. Anne Lappe, the daughter of Francis Moore Lappe who wrote “Diet for a Small Planet,” spoke about the new book she and her mother had written: “Grub.”
I walked home with Jorge Velazco of MURAL, a Guadalajara newspaper, and dropped into my bed at the hotel. Fatigue was catching up with me.
On Sunday I heade back over to Columbia and heard a great panel on water. I traded books with Jacques Leslie, author of “Deep Water: the epic struggle over dams displace people and the environment.”
I was done and headed home, My frined Pete came down from Utica and we went walking around the lower east side. I ate $45 worth of sushi and then we went to an anniversary celebration of a film cooperative that had been around since the 60's.
I left the hotel Bellclaire at 5:00 AM and took the bus out to the airport. at 1:30 PDT I was landing in Tucson, (Arizona does not do Daylight savings time) On the flight the captain whom I had met earlier at the airport, announce that I had just finished riding my bike from Mexico to NYC and writtten a book. He asked me to stnad up, everybody clapped for me. I went up the aisle schmoozing and probably sold more books than at some of my book signings.
more good news: I got word last night that I won a Guggenheim. i will have money to write the next installment of this fisheries series: The good news about sustainable fisheries and aquaculture! There is hope after all.
April 10, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
I want to thank all the people who helped, you were the wind at my back:
1. The French grocer, Marci Roberts and James Evans, Marathon, Texas
2. Carolyn J. Wells, San Antonio, Texas
3. Dinah Price, the Twig Bookshop, San Antonio, Texas
4. Eileen Murphy, Austin, Texas
5. Justin Cronin, Rice University, Houston, Texas
6. Cole Molyneaux and Catherine Feser, Houston, Texas
7. Phil and Louann Feser, Houston, Texas
8. Eduardo Aguilar, Pacifica Radio, Houston, Texas
9. Page Williams, Sierra Club, Houston, Texas
10. Paul Harcombe, Center for Society and the Environment, Rice University, Houston, Texas
11. Rick Schreiber, Houston, Texas
12. Mark Muhich, Galveston, Texas
13. Jay Midsummer Books, Galveston, Texas
14. Grif Blakewood, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana.
15. Stacey Sauce, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Baton Rouge, Lousiana
16. David Brown, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Baton Rouge, Lousiana
17. Bill Kelso, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
18. Aaron Viles, Gulf Restoration Network, New Orleans, Louisiana.
19. The Gumbo Alliance, Algiers, Louisiana
20. Lee Emery, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Biloxi, Mississippi
21. Josh Terszkiewicz, Wetherford’s Outback, Pensacola, Florida
22. Craig Schuler, Bristol, Florida
23. Julie Ferreira, Sierra Club, Fernandina Beach, Florida
24. Trish Hartman and Wendy McNew, WJCL/Fox28 Savannah, Georgia
25. Beverly Bishop, Firehouse Books, Beaufort, South Carolina
26. Fred Moore & family, Isle of Palms, South Carolina
27. PJ Cunnane, President of Fuji Bicycles USA, Philadelphia
28. John and Ginny Sherm, Wilmington, North Carolina
29. Renee Thurmond, Jacksonville, North Carolina
30. Jenil Miller, Pine Knoll Shores Public Library, North Carolina
31. James Morris, Beaufort, North Carolina
32. Beth B&N VA beach
33. Jim and Carol Molyneaux, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
34. Mickey McLaughlin, Cape May, New Jersey
35. Eileen Kajetske, Wetlands Institute, Cape May, New Jersey
36. Darla Jakes, WPVI/ABC, Philadelphia
37. Sarah Bloomquist, WPVI/ABC, Philadelphia
38. Matt Dennis, WPVI/ABC, Philadelphia
39. Pidge and Jim Molyneaux, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania
40. The Printer’s Printer, Collegeville, Pennsylvania
41. Jane Folpe, Columbia University, New York
42. Anya Schiffrin, Columbia University, New York
43. Paul and Kathy Westbrook, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
44. Tony Williams, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
45. Carolanne, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
46. Steve Spear, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
47. Jo Ann Ridley, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
48. Peter and Vicki Lockwood, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
49. Janet Anderson, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
50. Jean Burgess, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
51. Linda Hellman, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
52. Andrew and Rosemary Kovatch, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico
53. Brian Marks, Tucson, Arizona
54. Don Staniford, Pure Salmon Campaign, Newport, Rhode Island
55. Valerie Craig, Seaweb, Washington, DC
56. Anne Mosness, Bellingham, Washington
57. Vivian Newman, Sierra Club, South Thomaston, Maine
58. Betsy Steve, Avalon Publishing, NewYork
59. The Institute for Policy dialogue at Columbia University, New York
60. All the folks who helped with simple good will and benedictions along the way
And Katherine Callingham, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico; Joe Dyer, of Eddlyline Legendary designs; and the folks at Red Oaks Trading in Poughkipsee, New York
If you do not find your name here, and you think you should, by all means let me know. So many people helped me along the way that I am sure to miss someone.