I'm loving Angels instead

It is not every day you find yourself on a remote Pacific island discussing an evacuation of your hostel due to a tsunami warning. The earthquake in British Columbia had tsunami sirens sounding signalling a need to move to higher ground on the Hawaiian islands. It reminded me of many other crises I have faced through work like when we had a mad man on the roof. Usual rules apply - keep calm, make a decision based on the best information available and communicate clearly. There were 20 of us who evacuated en masse to the lobby of the Holiday Inn. There are worse places to hang out and they were - in fairness - very tolerant of our beer drinking. Thankfully the waves didn't amount to much and today island life continues as normal.

James and I are here on a break from cycling meeting up with friends and loved ones who have flown out to see us. It is wonderful to be around familiar faces as it can be hard to make connections in a new place.

Los Angeles is a massive sprawling city. I knew I was only there for a short time and was unsure of how to make the most of my visit. Like London, LA can be overwhelming. What does it mean to 'do' a city? Having driven down from San Francisco I did not want to experience LA by car. Reunited with cycling buddy James, we were lucky enough to stay in a friend's apartment near the marina. Thanks Mari Davies.

Santa Monica and Venice Beach are neighbouring and merging communities on the coast of LA. They reminded me of Islington and Camden by the sea. Santa Monica is upscale and Venice Beach has medical marijuana on sale with people dressed in green giving out cards. Most people do drive but they also cycle and walk along the beach which go to make these communities feel friendly and safe.

I was lucky to be invited to join a morning ocean swim with a friend Michael who has run 13 marathons, the last in 2 hours and 39 minutes.

I got to the car lot at 645am as planned. I scrambled around in my spare change to fine money for a parking ticket. Another guy politely asked the homeless guy who was sleeping by the meter to move out of the way.

So there I was in my bikini, in a dark LA car park.

I started talking to people in the lot who were putting on wet suits (triathletes love a wet suit) and soon identified the swimmers.

The sun was just rising. The ocean looked calm and as soon as I put my feet in the water I was relieved that it was relatively (relative to San Francisco Bay and any British water) warm. Through the break waters and out to a buoy. These guys could swim. We swam along the beach toward the candy coloured lights of Santa Monica pier.

There is something about the feeling of swimming that feels incredibly primitive, especially swimming with others. You have company and solitude all in one. Humans were designed for group survival. Swimming in 'pods' gives you courage to swim harder and safer. Sharks like lions pick off the weakest.

Just over a mile we regrouped and turned back. It was hard to sight the others when swimming into the sun. One minute you are in a watery valley and next on the peak of a swell. Back to the buoy and then in - easy. I relaxed and swam back in. I glanced to where I thought the swimmers were but I had lost them. I was metres from the beach but felt disorientated. I had hit the break waters. I tried to stand up but there was no sand. I swam further in and saw a woman (Alison) and her yellow cap. I stood up and saw her pointing behind me. I looked around and saw a smallish wave as it crashed around me. The power of the sea in that tiny wave was incredible. It pushed my goggles off my face and soon I had lost them in the surf. I had to concentrate hard to keep my balance. I was glad to get my feet back on the beach.

Delia, one of the swimmers, kindly invited me for coffee and it felt good to make swimming connections 1000s of miles from home. I was given a Santa Monica Bathing society swim hat and felt like I had lived like a Santa Monican. This is what visiting a city should be.

America is a huge diverse country and yet it is through these connections that I have understood its rich collage. Statistics give a frame work but it is these nuances in society that fascinate me. Trends, changing habits and ideas give clues to how the future might look. My personal prediction for fashion: Wide legged jeans have got to be back. I have see them on Venice Beach and I am sure I have been wearing skinny for too long. Remember you read it here first. Or maybe you didn't and I'm already behind the curve.

Another example of understanding a place through local connections was when I headed north with my parents to visit family friends in Redding. Proper rest and relaxation. One day stands out in our visit. Mary Lou had very kindly done her research and found the local folk group for my dad who plays the fiddle. The standing joke throughout the week was that Mary Lou had invited an orchestra sized group and they were probably going to be moving in. Sunday came and I accompanied my dad and Meurig (confusingly the same name as my dad) to the Sunday practice.

And there I was. In the middle of a place most people have never heard of - (Redding California) in a circle of people and my dad is teaching them a Welsh folk tune. After the practice four of the lads joined us at Meurig and Mary Lou's for more playing, singing and musical exchange. Mary-Lou had cooked me a cake that said 'Way to go Mari' and showed our route across the states. I felt very lucky and loved - and like I belonged.

Be it cycling, swimming, politics or whatever floats your boat, (Did I really just say that?) modern cities are full of these sub groups which give all of us belonging beyond ourselves. Newspapers and blogs add to this feeling of belonging so that you can still feel that in a city.

Starting making those connections can be hard and I found it very difficult when I first moved to London but now, even miles away from friends family I feel still part of communities in London and increasingly with friends in different places across the states.

Connections are complex but technology means connections can be world wide and borders are less significant. In Hawaii I followed the same logic. I found the Waikiki Swim Club on line and signed up for a stoke improvemen at the university and was welcomed to the swimming fold. Tomorrow I will be joining some of these swimmers to start my day with an ocean swim.

Technology offers an opportunity to challenge the tendency for us as humans to be unafraid of the unknown. Technology however also can take us away from the moment. I went into Starbucks in Waikiki and saw rows of people on lap tops and phone plugged into to a virtual world. The room was silent. Perhaps no different from everyone reading the newspaper or perhaps many lost opportunities. When we were cycling across America we went to so many local cafes with a group of over 60s all starting their day with coffee and a good gossip. To live in the moment rather than the virtual moment has got to be important. I will try to take the advice myself given how much I can be addicted to Facebook.

We can only experience life by moments and learning to enjoy and appreciate the now is one of my challenges for this year.

Californian Dreams and Reality

The end of a 3600 mile bike ride is a bit like the end of a school term. You think it is never going to arrive and then, bang, you're in Vallejo just outside San Fran and you have 10 minutes before you have to get on the ferry. We had time to rush a photo and sat inside the boat ordered a beer and a packet of crisps. Well done us. It was not the iconic cycle across the Golden Gate bridge I had imagined. But we had still done it. Quite an accomplishment. Something I had never even thought of doing, let alone aspired to do. Yet in the days that followed I have found many ways to celebrate the end of the first leg of our journey.

The final few weeks across California were good fun. The desert had given me some understanding of those early pioneers. 300,O00 people people made the journey between 1846 and 1860 - mainly men. 13,000 Chinese immigrants also came to California, 7 of these were women. Over the same period the Native American population in the state is estimated to have reduced from 150,000 to 3000. They did not emigrate. Food supply, disease and violence was the cause of the wipe out.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are the last mountain range before California. It was these mountains where the infamous Donner Party perished. Of 87 men, women and children who set out with wagons from Illinois only 46 survived. They took longer to cross the desert than they had hoped and got caught by the onset of winter. They sheltered in deserted log cabins and resorted to eating each other.

Our journey over the Sierras was more straightforward. We passed a final 'bears crossing' sign and descended into South Tahoe. The first part of the town has lots of casinos and then a tiny little sign and you're in California. 12% of Americans live in California compared with 0.2% who live in Wyoming. There are more people living in California than all the people from all the states we have cycled through put together. The last few days promised days of down hill. After a month at over 4000 feet we were heading into the warm sunshine state.

In our final week we were very lucky to benefit from the hospitality of folks from a site called Warm Showers. Cyclists willing to host fellow cyclists.

Just outside Sacramento, the state capital we were hosted by Matthew and Cathie. I was attracted to their profile not just because they were teachers but because they promised food, wine and a swimming pool. Not surprisingly however the best part of staying with them was the conversation and finding kindred spirits.

Matthew and Cathie were 7 weeks into term when we arrived on a Tuesday night. Their next break would be Christmas vacation. Cathie's passion for her job - a primary school teacher - making learning interesting for children reminded me of what is inspiring about great teachers . She said whenever she travels she always thinks of what she can bring back for her students. And that is after 30 years of teaching. Matthew is an art teacher but has chosen to teach drawing and painting. 'You cannot teach art' he said. But I can teach them a skill.

'When I went to art college I could only copy. For ages I hid the fact I could not draw. I wish someone had taught me'. He also introduced me to the philosopher Joseph Campbell.

Joseph Campbell was an American philosopher who explored how as human beings we use common myths to explain our lives.

He said ''Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.''

He was fascinated by the stories used by Native Americans and different religions. Different cultures uses heroes and quests often as a way of coping and understanding life and he noted common threads across the globe.

Being on the road has given me a lot of time to think and to think beyond the classroom. The story that I wrote for myself growing up is not quite how my life is turning out. As Campbell suggested 'We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us'

It has really made me feel both very tiny in the universe and also made me consider how big and important some things are.

Meeting Matthew and Cathie reminded me of the joys of teaching and how important it is that teachers are looked after. I recently read an interview with Kathryn Lovewell (what a great surname) about her book 'Every Teacher Matters'. She talks about not being a martyr. She said:

'As a teacher, you are trained to focus entirely on the needs of your pupils and, since the teaching profession attracts people who give their time generously, teachers can easily forget their own needs. Ironically, this self-sacrificing approach does not necessarily help pupils and instead provides a poor example for the young people you teach.'

Until I chose to take a year out of the classroom I didn't really think Teacher Support Network was much of a worthy cause. My mum convinced me it was. Teachers are now paid relatively well, it's a stable job and it's supposed to be hard work, plus you get plenty of holiday and a good pension even if some of us will have to work until 68. Being out of the classroom however has made me reflect on how much of my life has been focused on my job. That's a good thing because it's great to have made a significant contribution to young people's education but teaching should be a job that can be done well without exhaustion or burn out. It should not be only for missionaries. Neither should it be a macho contest about who can work the hardest, latest or sacrifice the most. School leaders have a particularly important role in setting this culture and I am determined when I return to London schools to remember how important that is. I want teachers in my school to enjoy their work and be energised and inspired by their lives outside the classroom.

As we pedalled closer to San Francisco so we saw more cyclists. At Davis we hit biking hippie culture. There were microbreweries, a cycling museum and the first ever painted bike lane in the US. We stayed with John and Kathy members of the Davis cycling club and enjoyed the luxuries of a gas pit fire and an outdoor shower. 'Just don't look' was the rule.

So back to our final destination as a cycling duo - San Fran. We landed on the dock at dusk and found our way to the train to San Mateo where I was met by old friends. A splendid group of ladies who swim for a Masters Club in San Mateo. Truly swimming is my first love. If I could have swum round the world - and not frozen to death or eaten be eaten by sharks - I would have done. Two years ago I went on a swimming holiday in Greece and met this wonderful bunch.

Patt and Regina met us at the station and we were whisked away to Patt's gorgeous apartment for food, wine, showers and general rest and relaxation. Regina kept accidentally doing a British accent and then apologising. The following day Patt had planned a wonderful night of Moussaka and drinks for the whole gang. Patt also told us what we should do in case of an earthquake. A reminder that a city is no protection from nature's will.

Patt took us across to Half Moon Bay for our official 'we just cycled across America' photograph and fish and chips. Though because it's American fish and chips, it is fish with either fries, salad or coleslaw. Patt also gave James advice about cycling down to Los Angeles on Highway 1. I have headed north with my parents to Redding to stay with our incredibly hospitable family friends Meurig and Mary-Lou. Meurig comes from the same place as my dad - Cwmavan near Port Talbot and they have a daughter called Mari Sian. Well I never. It has been great to be in one place for a few days.

Soon after my arrival in San Fran, my parents (who have taken some time to come round to the 'So mum and dad I am quitting my job and cycling round the world with a maths teacher' idea. How unexpected.) arrived. They had brought me an 'I loves the 'diff' (Cardiff) T shirt.

One morning in the city I left our hotel at 6am and walked across the city to meet my friend Suzie for an early morning swim in The Bay. We met at her swimming club on the harbour. With my bikini, hat and nose clip we swum out to the harbour wall and watched the sun rise light Alcatraz and the Golden Gate. She and many others start every day like this. Wow.

San Francisco thrives in its reputation as a welcoming, liberal and lively city. Inhabitants are fiercely proud of this heritage and rightly so. The Castro area became the gay area of town because a group of gay men who were ridiculously discharged from the United States army because of their homosexuality settled there. By 1980 an estimated 17% of the city's population was gay.

One of the things I have noticed - that everyone notices about San Fran is the number of what Americans call panhandlers. Beggars. We were first told about these people in Cold Springs. A tiny place in the middle of the Nevada desert. Our breakfast server told us - 'Do you know they earn $100,000 dollars a day?' James feigned surprise and questioned whether that was documented.
'Oh yes' came the well evidenced reply.
On the bike trail on the way in to Sacramento we were told the same. 'there was this one guy that had $250,00 in the bank'.

I was still genuinely surprised by how visible homelessness is in the city. London has changed dramatically since the 1980s when cardboard city was a well known place on the South Bank. When people come right up to you and ask for money it poses a dilemma. I want to help you but I'm not sure if giving you money does help and I'd also prefer that you weren't in front of me exacerbating my middle class guilt. As always with any kind of complex problem, the solutions are not easy. The cause factors, as I understand are:
a mild enough climate.
a lot of people who became homeless in the 1980s are still here.
a liberal population that will not support harsh anti social policies that merely move people out of the eye of tourists.

The city has numerous organisations that are dedicated to try and help the chronic homeless. One initiative recently gave dogs to homeless people to train them and in return they had to not beg.

Mitt Romney was recently caught saying that he wasn't interested in the 47% that depend on the state. What has been good about the debate that followed is that it has made Americans talk about who gets what and who gives in. Healthcare is one of the biggest issues and language is powerful in the campaign. Socialist and liberal are dirty words in America. If you want socialist medicine it is assumed you want a Soviet style state.

So this is how it works. You work, your company pays for your insurance. You get ill. You go to the doctor. You get a bill and you send it to the insurance company and they pay.

If you live on the street, you get ill, you go to the hospital and Medicare will pick up the bill. One San Fran journalist estimated that one guy on the streets of the City had clocked up a million dollar medical bill over his life time.

If you can afford health care but you haven't been able to afford insurance and you are ill you have to pay. For example in one man Patt told us about went to the hospital and was told to go to a doctor on the Monday to have his broken arm put in a cast. He went and because he couldn't afford it the doctor would not set it. A one night hospital stay is likely to set you back $15,000 dollars. Of course your insurance pays after you pay around 20% excess depending on your policy. These high costs already pay for those who cannot afford it so why not make the system more fair?

Toby in Kansas told me about her brother who because he had leukaemia the insurance company refused to fund a bone marrow transplant until a stem cell implant had been tried. The doctors said it would not work but the insurance companies insisted. It didn't. He had the transplant but then died shortly afterward.

Obama's plan is to make insurance compulsory - like it is compulsory to have car insurance in the UK or California. And if you don't have insurance you'd pay a fine. Romney liked the idea so much he introduced a universal healthcare system when he was state governor of Massachusetts but now he's apparently changed his mind.

When I have been surrounded by Republicans it is hard to imagine that Obama stands a chance but the reality of the electoral system is that it will come down to the swing states.

And finally, back to Joseph Campbell ..

“Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn't know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.”

So the cycle across America is over. Next stop is Los Angeles then Hawaii then New Zealand. So we'll see if Campbell has a point.


http://www.teachersupport.info/blogs/01-october-2012/kathryn-lovewell-s-ten-top-tips-teachers#.UHjtThB5mSN

http://www.shmoop.com/california-gold-rush/statistics.html

http://www.teachersupport.info/twoteachers - Thanks to Teacher Support Network for creating this great interactive map of our journey

Nevada ending story

One of the reasons I came on this trip was to get unstuck. To shake things up a bit. To see if things could be a little different by doing things a little differently. Already I have seen things a little differently. And yet last Sunday somewhere in the middle of the Nevada mountains I felt stuck. Partly because I was. The weather was cold and raining with threats of snow on the mountain so we stopped cycling and sheltered for a day.

We were taken in by Mike who runs Major's Station - a bar in the middle of nowhere. And Nevada can feel like nowhere.

To cross the states we had decided against the northern mountains and instead opted for desert. Highway 50 was named the Loneliest Highway by Life magazine in 1986. The towns and services are sparse - sometimes 80 miles apart. After reading various bike forums my major concern was having enough water. 6 litre plastic bottles later and I had a reservoir ready for the Sahara.

Nevada is a reassuringly ungodly place in contrast to Mormon established Utah. Unlike Utah which has state liquor stores or Kentucky where we stopped in many dry towns, here you can drink, gamble and it is easier to get married and divorced. It is remote, so many communities have moved here to be away from others as we found when we stayed at the Border Inn.

The Border Inn is, as the name suggests, on the border of the two states. A genius location that means customers can enjoy Utah's gas prices and Nevada's slot machines and alcohol. But there was more fun going on last Saturday. The locals had organised a pot luck dinner, a band and The Baker Boys show - drag queens from Salt Lake City. Apparently the key hot shots couldn't make it this year so the performances were variable but Tracey made a good effort in four different costumes.

The fundraiser was attended by people from the nearby Hope Farm - a hippie commune, one of the many established in the Californian out spill in the 1960s. It was also supported by students from Eskdale - a neo Mormon community whose members broke away from the Mormon church in the 1930s. The House of Aaron is a community who celebrate education and communal eating - right up my street. They traditionally wear blue shirts embroidered with the word 'Levi'. They refuse to wear Wrangler.

At the same party I also met Delaine. I asked her if she lived in Border.

'My family has lived here over 10,000 years. We live in the Great Basin.'

One of the few native Americans at the do, she told me about the massacre which her grandmother survived as a child. She fled and was raised by a Mormon couple. I asked her what she would teach the world. She said she would teach the world to act whilst thinking about the next seven generations. She directed me to her son's blog - a native American and general political campaigner.

The big issue in the Great Basin is that Las Vegas, where the majority of Nevada's population lives is trying to buy the land they need to construct a water pipeline to take the water to Las Vegus. America will you not learn? The project would take water from an already arid area.The fate of the project is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court.

In Fallon, Nevada there are more water concerns. This time it's arsenic. The state government has forced the town to build a purification plant. It's shared the cost with the nearby naval training base - think Tom Cruise in Top Gun. As to why there are so many cases of child hood lukeimia here, no one is entirely sure.

The desert is where you do things you don't want others to see. Nuclear testing - above and underground. In Delta, Utah was the location of the biggest Japanese internment camp - Topaz. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, the event that drew America into World War Two, Roosevelt ordered for all Japanese Americans to be rounded up and put in camps. This did not happen to people of German heritage. 110,00 people from the Pacific coast were rounded up - one of the most shameful episodes in recent American history, President Reagan apologised for the action in 1988 saying it was caused by "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership".

So there I was, stuck - at Major's Station feeing like a school child on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It was Mike who first spotted the neon caped figure cycling from across the valley. It was Jonny the Swede. Here to brighten up the desert with his unintentional Swedish quips.

Since we saw him at the start of his journey in Kentucky he had seen 2 bears, broken his collar bone and fixed 15 punctures. Yet he was still going. He joined us, or rather he joined James as they raced up hills together and in Ely we were joined by 18 year old Francisco. Francisco was surprised that I was 36, old enough, in fact the same age as, his mother. The desert crossing was beginning to feel more like a school trip. Have we got everyone? Cookie anyone? Anyone need the loo?

That said It was good to have their company for a few days. Thanks guys.

After a week of cycling up, then down mountains then across flat valleys all the time looking out for mountain lions, I am ready for more people. But what the desert has taught me is that never mistake nothing for no history. And don't think just because you can't see it, it's not there.

The Pony Express ran for less than 2 years between delivering letters to the west coast ending in 1861 with the advent of the telegraph. There were 157 stations around 10 miles apart. This was around the distance a horse could comfortably gallop. The Pony Express advertised for young men who had to risk their lives riding through hostile Indian territory. The Pony Express is a great example of a story that is loved and highlighted in American history and along Highway 50 which follows its route. The story has everything: Risk takers, business men, horses, dangerous Indians and a journey westward cementing California into the union. One recent historian has argued that in fact this flop of a business has been blown out of all significance because of these factors. We look for the history that says something about us.

I also talked with Jonny about the native people of Finland and Sweden. The Sami, or Laps as they were named by the white people, were targeted by both the Norwegian and Swedish governments. Their lands were, what Americans would call homesteaded. In Norway they had to change their names to own land. In Sweden the Institute of Racial Biology, set up in 1922, spent its first years trying to prove that the Sami were racially inferior. The tale of poor treatment of native peoples is not exclusive to the States. In fact it is very dangerous to start looking for heroes and villains of our past.

Perhaps the reason why I asked Jonny about the native people of Finland or my desire to seek out the other side of the American story is my own Welsh heritage. I certainly feel more Welsh being away from the UK and much more than I do when I am in London. I think it is important to seek out different histories and remember that the history of a country is only one interpretation and certainly not inevitable.

I am always fascinated by the capacity of all of us to use our own identities and stories to shape our understanding. Be it the story of a bad day that just gets worse or the story of a country. The important thing to remember is that truth is fluid and always shaped by perspective. So one woman's stuck could be another woman's opportunity of a life time.

It is not just winners who write history. We all do.