It's hard to deny that there's a little bit of America in practically all of us no matter where we live. It seeps into our psyche through movies, popular music and products. We've all been programmed with the stereotype images of California girls, Texas cowboys and New York millionaires as part of a modern mythology.
I was born in Manila in 1962, a just little over a decade and a half after the Philippines was granted independence from being a US Commonwealth territory. The imprint of 50 years of American rule was still relatively fresh to the generations before me. The first ten years of my education was in a private school where most of our text books were from the States. Throughout my childhood I was well aware of the presence of US military bases in the islands, especially when they were busy as staging points for the Vietnam War. My family would sometimes drive up to Clark Air Base north of the city on a weekend to shop for surplus American goods which were considered a special treat— it's strange to reminisce that in a land of tantalizing tropical fruits and candies, this kid would somehow think fresh mangoes paled in comparison to canned peaches and that a Three Musketeers candy bar was utterly exotic.
So there's my partial disclosure of my fascination of some things American, despite being a happily brainwashed Canadian for most of my life now. Even though I live less than a hundred kilometres from the border, the USA remains a paradoxical entity to me: A place that prides itself in its democracy and freedom but limits its politics to two flavours; A country that managed to agree on the simplest of principles but often tugs in two opposing directions to fulfill them. Maybe this is why American society has become so good at creating icons — symbols whose concepts have been simplified and made easy to grasp yet can be interpreted in many ways to mean different things to different people.
I've bike toured in the USA numerous times, mostly along the edges — down the length of the Pacific coast, most of the Atlantic coast, across the south from Florida to Texas and California, and even up to the wilds of Alaska. This time, I'd like to venture into the middle and see places that I haven't visited yet.
I was hoping to do this trip much earlier in the spring to escape most of the oppressive desert heat but some prolonged projects (and some procrastination) got in the way. Although I had much of my preparatory packing done in advance, I finally pushed my impulse and bought a ticket to Los Angeles a mere week in advance of departure. This first leg of this trip is partially inspired by the newly minted Bicycle Route 66, but modified to take in some places I've never been to like Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, and Monument Valley. I am keeping myself open to how the rest of the ride will go and I haven't even planned how exactly I will get back home.
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| I started to prep my bike back in April. I bought a new helmet and dry seal bag — and rewrapped my handlebars — all in bright neon green, a colour that's sure to stand out along the desert roads |
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| I've gotten the hang of boxing a bike and baggage for travel so that all I check in is the box and the rest is carry-on |
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