Mona wrote over 100 pages of diary, and Dick 60, during the last three weeks of our journey. It will be difficult to capture the joy and wonder of those days in just a few short pages. We will try our best.

The most delightful aspect of that period was that most of our cycling took place in warm, summer weather. So the weather menu for the four months of our trip consisted of two months predominantly of sunshine on top of five weeks predominantly of rain and finally three weeks of sunshine, a sort of rain sandwich on sunshine bread. Winter on the East Coast seemed to take a profound dying gasp on the first day of summer, June 22. That was the day we conducted Sunday service at the UU Church of Framingham, Massachusetts, then returned with Mona's daughter, Dana Seehale, to her home in Woburn. We had just stopped in Lexington for lunch when there was an enormous cloud burst. Mona was wearing sandals with socks and Dana a pair of high heeled shoes as we waded across a street suddenly turned into river. But within a few days it was almost like Florida again.

Leaving Fall River we had a most pleasant ride to the Cape Cod Canal. There, in the Bourne City Park Campground, we met a pair of young cyclists heading out west. Jacob showed off his very comfy recumbent bike, towing a BOB trailer, but admitted that his partner, Emily, was actually faster on her standard touring bike. They'd been on the road less than a week and had only rudimentary maps. When Jacob talked about biking down to Mississippi in mid-summer (hot & muggy & buggy), we knew they were greenhorns, but after a few words of advice wished them well anyway.

The next morning we luxuriated in biking the Cape Cod Canal - several miles of glorious bike path, flat as a pancake and in perfect condition, next to a "canal" that was as wide as many rivers, with a current to match. Technically this canal transformed Cape Cod from a peninsula into an island. Then near-disaster struck. When taking pictures, Dick noticed that our digital camera didn't seem to be operating right, so he decided to replace the batteries. The new batteries did the trick alright, except that now a message appeared asking us if we wanted to "reformat" our memory chip - we'd lost everything on it, all our pictures for the last couple of months! Then Dick remembered that he had uploaded these pictures to David Hathaway's computer just the weekend before. After a quick phone call, David saved the day by burning them all onto a CD and mailing them to our address in Boston. Mona had forgotten the Roberta Donnay "One World" CD at the Fall River church, so David became a double savior to us by mailing that too. Then the weather and biking became so good that we just kept going - all the way through sun-speckled Cape Cod woods and 11 miles on the Cape Cod rail-to-trail to the popular campground at Nickerson State Park, only stopping for an ice cream bar or two. We must confess that all this sunshine was getting dangerous - the day before we'd actually shared a giant chocolate fudge sundae.

The last time we actually bicycled in the rain was the next morning on to the home of Mary and Chuck Chestnut of Chatham, who were as warm and generous as their name is alliterative. There we were treated to a great conversation with Mary while soaking in their hot tub with its view of Nantucket Sound beyond salt marshes that had once been cranberry bogs. That night we met many local UUs at a potluck dinner, even more the next morning after a presentation and lively discussion at the church. These wonderful people included former UUA President Gene Pickett, along with all-around activist Patty Carney. Minister Ed Hardie had even preached on the Earth Charter the Sunday before. But it wasn't until a week later that we realized that we'd left our swimsuits and rain gear drying at the Chestnuts - Gene was kind enough to bring them to us at the UUA General Assembly in Boston.

Cycling scenery was gorgeous during our last three weeks, probably because we were back again to within view of the ocean much of the time. The Cape Cod bike trail took us on a tour of the natural world, past ponds, marshes, and forest lands. Mona had begun to wonder whether we would ever see quaint village boardwalk scenes to match the popular song, "You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod," or remarks by New Urbanism guru, James Howard Kunstler, chastising Americans for going to Cape Cod on vacation instead of making their home towns look like it. But after leaving the bike trail, we did find those scenes in abundance in such towns as Chatham, Wellfleet, and Provincetown. In fact, one remarkable feature we noted about Massachusetts was that stores and businesses weren't so restricted to commercial strips or zones. Some stores were well disguised inside of quaint New England style houses with attractive signage that blended nicely with the neighborhoods. An excellent example of such a business was Halletts, the deli grocery where we lunched in Yarmouth our first afternoon on Cape Cod. Founded in the early 1800's this store had been a soda fountain / drug store, now complete with ornately carved woodwork, glass paneled cupboards, round tables with wrought iron ice cream chairs, etc. But superimposed over such details were telltale signs of the store's current existence as a Vietnamese operated mini-mart - aluminum cans of V8 Juice, Diet Coke, Balance Bars, and corn chips peered out through antique glass doors with more of the same piled in cardboard boxes on the floor. Mona ordered up a veggie wrap identical to the ones she used to have daily at a Vietnamese store on the corner of MLK and Alaska Street in Seattle.

During this final reporting period we were generously offered many opportunities to talk with people about the Earth Charter and global democracy. In addition to Chatham and Framingham, another great UU encounter was our stay in the Campground at the Ferry Beach UU Conference Center (found totally by accident when we asked for advice from a local cyclist who happened to be a UU). Then at GA we participated in an Earth Charter workshop conducted by Mel Hoover, who gave us the floor for several minutes to share our thoughts and experiences. Our last but not least event was conducting the Service July 6 at the UU Church of Bangor, Maine. About 40 people showed up on a hot Sunday morning in their magnificent downtown edifice.

The most interesting drama of our entire trip occurred at the UU General Assembly in Boston on the weekend of June 27-29. At the suggestion of Carol Allen in Princeton, we had decided to write an Action of Immediate Witness to propose to the Assembly for debate. This is an opportunity for individuals and groups to bring up current issues of public interest, asking Unitarian Universalists to stand up and be counted for our beliefs and commitments. So the issue we selected was Bush's violation of the United Nations Charter by going to war against a country that was not threatening anyone and without specific approval of the UN Security Council. We feel this to be the most critical concern of our day. It sets a very dangerous precedent that other countries would surely follow and therefore essentially turns back fifty years of progress toward a more peaceful world order. So in evenings around the campfire, in motel rooms, or in peoples' homes, we spent a lot of time carefully wording and polishing our "whereas's" and conclusions. We feel, and many other people have agreed, that we produced a very good document.

There are a number of rules by which the Action of Immediate Witness game is played: 1. You have to be a delegate. 2. You have to register your statement at a certain booth in the exhibit hall by 5 pm on Friday. 3. You have to gather at least 150 signatures from other delegates with at least five districts and 25 societies represented. These have to be submitted by 5 pm on Saturday. However the catch is that only six Actions can be submitted for consideration by the Assembly. If more than six qualified statements show up, the Committee on Social Witness chooses which ones to submit.

The signature gathering was a blast! As people walked by in the crowded hallways, we would simply stop the ones wearing little purple delegate ribbons and say, "This is an action of immediate witness asking the Assembly to insist that the President of the United States adhere to the United Nations Charter." In the vast majority of cases, a big smile would break over the person's face. Then they would grab the clip board eagerly and sign the statement. We got over 215 signatures in a few hours. However at about 9 pm Saturday, while we were riding the subway back to Woburn, our cell phone rang in Dick's pocket. I could hear him mumbling sadly into the phone, "Oh, I see," and "Well, uh huh." Then he put the phone back in his pocket and announced that our statement was one of two qualifying proposals that were rejected by the Committee.

We were very disappointed to say the least. None of the other proposals were as fundamental or urgent as ours - in fact we had just been hearing more threats against Iran, North Korea might be on the back burner only temporarily, even Cuba has been mentioned. So we took action anyway. Next day, while the other statements were being discussed, we handed out 300 of ours to delegates going in and out of the hall with these words, "Here's what you didn't get to vote on. We believe it's the most important issue of our time, Bush's violation of the United Nations Charter. We don't want it to happen again."

The last three weeks of our trip were its crowning glory for another reason. We got to spend time with a real special person, Mona's daughter Dana, on each of the three weekends. On July 20 after we crossed on the high-speed ferry from Provincetown to Boston, we met Dana at Biogen Company where she works. She had some fun events planned for us that weekend, such as attending a grand opening at the Salem Art Museum. On the following weekend, Dana drove up to Portland, Maine, where we left our bicycle with young UUs Mora and Tim Severance and rode back to Boston for the UU General Assembly. Then our four month journey ended in a weekend in Bar Harbor where Dana had rented cottages for us and for her and her partner Kevin Dale. During that weekend we all did some hiking, kayaking, and more bicycling in the incredibly beautiful Acadia National Park. The scenery reminded us so much of the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound. In fact, Maine reminded us so much of home, that perhaps we were projecting home into it because by that time we were so homesick.

After Boston we stuck to camping all the way up the coast of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine to Bar Harbor. To give you an idea of what summer means in the Northeast, let's recount our arrival at Salisbury State Park, on the ocean just below the New Hampshire border. This was 4 pm midweek, but we hit a huge traffic jam coming from the ocean when we turned off US 1 to bike the last couple of miles before the turnoff to the park. We wondered what big event had just wrapped up at the beach and why we hadn't seen any signs advertising it. It finally dawned on us what the big event was - the first hot day of summer! Then all the way up the New Hampshire coast into Maine it was one packed beach after another. Even Miami Beach was no match. Then just as we crossed from Portsmouth into Maine the weather began to cool. By the time we got to Kennybunkport and rode past the Bush family summer residence, we understood why summering on the Maine coast is so popular. The off shore waters are much cooler - raises hordes of tourists as well as fish. And we weren't the only bicycle tourists - we passed several groups of high school students on organized tours. Turned out that one girl we talked to was from the River Road UU Church in Bethesda, Maryland, bringing back memories of our cold, wet entrance into DC. Picturesque Rockport brought us another surprise. On the spur of the moment we decided to stop at a Center for Contemporary Art. Some interesting paintings, but lo and behold, when we walked upstairs, there were dozens of exquisite pictures and multi-media exhibits of India. We'd just been thinking of taking our Bike for Global Democracy to India next winter. Then we met the photographer himself, Steven Huyler, who'd published 4 books on India. He assured as that biking and traveling in India was indeed quite feasible - his own brother had recently completed a bike trip from Madras to New Dehli.

But that day we didn't pass any supermarkets and ran low on food - no bagels! Fortunately we found a rare Mexican restaurant that night, but the next day we had to make a decision when we came to Belfast. Do we stay on the main road and find a supermarket or go into the historic downtown and hope to find a store later? "What the hell, we'll survive somehow, let's get off the highway and go through downtown." Well, sometimes miracles do occur - right in the middle of downtown we glance over and see as sign that says "Belfast Co-op". Dick told Mona, "We've hit the jackpot". Indeed the selection of customers was as good as the selection of food - we must have spent an hour talking to people about the Earth Charter, global democracy, and our adventures. Our sidetrip to the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport was very modest by comparison.

Our final night of camping was at the Whispering Pines Campground on Toddy Pond. We got to go swimming in the pond, then joined the camp owners over a campfire. None of the campgrounds since the deep south had had communal campfires like this one, let alone one with the owners. To them it was more of a retirement passion than occupation; they even cleaned the toilets and policed all the campsites by themselves. Many of their campers return year after year, even for the whole summer. But we began to grow nostalgic that our wonderful trip was almost over.

We arrived in Bar Harbor, the end of our journey at 3 pm on Friday, July 4. That evening there was a great celebration with a magnificent fireworks display. We suppose the thousands of spectators thought they were celebrating the Declaration of the 13 American colonies' independence from Britain. But to us the fireworks were all about our accomplishment of bicycling over 3000 miles and speaking with hundreds of wonderful people about our hopes for the survival of the human family on a very beautiful planet.

After a scenic hike up Cadillac Mountain and a peaceful evening kayak trip around the harbor, our final venture was a Monday morning bicycle ride on the carriage roads built by John D Rockefeller. One vista after another, on perfectly graded, hard-packed dirt, with nary a pothole in sight - you couldn't ask for better cycling or a better finale. Let's raise a toast to Earth Community.

Report website:  www.earthcharterusa.org/ecinaction.html.

"Transmit to future generations values, traditions, and institutions that support the long-term flourishing of Earth's human and ecological communities."
- Earth Charter principle I.4.b.

"We will work with civil society and will cultivate democratic institutions, ethical values, and sound scientific understanding to guide public endeavors, from local to global."
- Affirmation from the Preamble to the Charter of the Global Peoples Assembly Movement

www.earthcharterusa.org/ecinaction.html.

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