Discovering the US on a Bicycle - Edward Abair

With $250 in his pocket, a bicycle, and a pack weighing thirty-seven pounds, author Edward Abair set off for this adventure of a lifetime in 1972. Twenty-seven years old, this teacher and former Army medic bicycled 5,800 miles alone from Long Beach, California, to Miami, Florida, to Boston, Massachusetts.

In Discovering the US on a Bicycle, Abair shares a recap of his travels on that trip. He tells how he burned in 110-degree Southwest deserts, crossed the rugged West, ascended the Continental Divide, fed Mississippi mosquitoes, poured sweat in the humid swamplands of the South, and witnessed the devastation of a hurricane in Pennsylvania. On the way, he slept in river washes, abandoned motels, fire stations, jails, a river park with water moccasins, barns, and under porch roofs.

Forty years later, Abair kept a promise to travel the northern United States on the Lewis and Clark Trail in reverse from Astoria, Oregon, to St. Louis, Missouri. This time, he used modern equipment and had a wife supporting him in an automobile. At age 68, he tackled the rollercoaster roads of the Missouri River watershed, with painful knees and a sore rear end. With age and experience, he shares observations of finding the people and adventures from small town America to the St. Louis Gateway Arch.