En roue libre

We, the People of France, Canada, USA, cycling together, hosting together, sharing various spirituals thoughts and spirits… a brotherhood of cyclists !
Oh well, we’re probably over-influenced by our recent visits of Philadelphia and Washington, while listening to John Lennon.
Anyway, after 4 months on the road, it’s about time we post this … post in English to make sure our thanking are fully accessible to the wonderful people we’ve met during this trip, in Canada and USA.

Because let’s make this clear: turn off your TV : real people out there are nice, and helpful ! We’ve met great people and families through the Warmshower network, fellow cyclists who shared their house, car, dinner, breakfast, tips on local roads, and opened their dance floor to us in their basement, and more recently, let us stay in their great trailer, or "garage" which really felt like being in a real house with an outside Jacuzzi...!
We’ve met great families in campgrounds who shared their spot with us, their fire pits, their marshmallows, their secret beaches and even invited us to sleep … at their friends house for our next stage !
We've seen the Los Angeles Olympic flame, and discovered jello after great fishing time !
We've shared great dinners, we've been driven to great water falls ...
We’ve been motivated by people on the road, some even came back from the next village and waited for us on the road and offered us cool drinks and treats for the kids.
We’ve been saved from rain storms by pure luck when we were invited to come inside houses for 2 mn which turned into 2 hours, waiting for these dark clouds and heavy rain to go away.
We’ve been spoiled by small restaurants who offered us fantastic breakfast, after answering local media reporters !
We’ve been allowed to camp near hotels and they wouldn’t let us pay for breakfast the next day.
We’ve been given car keys to visit around when the weather was bad, or just to go to the train station and catch a train. Sometimes, our hosts cycled with us, even under heavy rain, just to show us the way and make sure we’d take the right direction.
We’ve watched stars and discovered what a nebular cluster is on Lake Superior Shores, with passionate astronomers.
And how many times were we told : you can stay as long as you want !
Sometimes, cyclists even wanted to pay for our campground, as we were soaking wet and probably looked miserable ! The world is nice out there, really ... quit Fox News !
Thank you all so much for all your help, and all the warm welcomes, awesome days and nights in your houses.

So here we are, October 6th, in this fantastic Mackeys Garage, North Carolina. Tomorrow we’re going to go back to the outer banks and head south, finally !
Joaquin storm is gone, the flooding should slowly improve; after almost 2 weeks without cycling much, we can’t wait to start cycling again.
About 4500 miles since we landed on June 5th in Vancouver.
After 1 month, we were in Jasper, starting a great stage through the Icefield parkway. After 2 months, we reached the Niagara falls.
Then a month later we were cycling Central Park in Manhattan.
And 4 months from the start, we were cycling away from a hurricane which never made it to the coast, even though South Carolina experienced the worst flooding in over 1000 years.

Thank you all warmshowers hosts for the great time we spent with you.
We can’t wait to host you when we’re back in France !

We almost have all our hosts' pictures, but we miss : Nick (Luke), Jim (Alpena), Simon (Kamloops), Arlyn and Sandy (Houghton), Dave and Cécile (NYC / Rye), Rajan and Ruby (Long Point Beach), Winfield (Washington). Please send them to us !