My friends Andrew and Maddy are riding a motorcycle across the US and blogging about it, which was no small part of the impetus for this whole thing.
Over a cup of percolated bliss, the riders were shocked to discover that although each had modest foreign travel experience, neither had explored the vast and beautiful country they called home. In an attempt to rectify the oversight, they set off to discover the United States and to meet as many Americans as they could along the way… this is the story of that adventure.
More than any other adventure, I think this trip is something every American can understand. Manifest destiny, the Wild West and rugged fronteirsmanship are written into our bones from the day we’re born, smuggled in by every tall tale and American myth we use to define our national psyche. Maybe most of us don’t really believe in those things anymore, or maybe we just don’t understand them, but I’d like to believe some small pilot light of independence* still burns under the Wal-Marts and Starbucks we’ve tried to replace it with.
* except the part about killing all the native americans