In our last report, we may have hinted something about our nomination of South Carolina as the prima bicycler's nightmare. As if to assure their claim to that title, the State Highway Patrol put in a crowning feature, namely the Charles River Bridge out of Charleston. It's about a two mile double arched bridge with a few too many angry drivers shouting threats and obscenities while waving fists out of windows at a moving bicycle, let alone one that's not. Yes, we did it. We managed to have a flat tire on the Charles River Bridge and had to walk the bike, trudging along, trailer in tow.

Still, for the most part, our last few days in the coastal lowlands of South Carolina will live on as fuzzy memories softly lit with hazy spring sunlight. We spent much of it traveling past woodlands but now and then crossing a stretch of grassy marsh and wide river. A jarring contrast with the peacefulness of that was the couple of days it took us to get in and out of the Myrtle Beach area.

Following is an excerpt from Mona's diary description of Myrtle Beach along Highway 17: "This was not like your usual ugly commercial strip that just sits there sort of apologizing for its ugliness. No, this one flaunted and celebrated its ugliness as though it were proud of it. There was an endless array of huge beach wear and gift stores hung with the same gaudy colored shifts and bikinis. Some store facades were adorned with giant shark replicas, their gaping jaws appearing to devour customers as they entered. There were also many amusement parks and glitzy water parks strewn along the strip amidst high rise hotels and the inevitable fast food joints. The most frequent and garish phenomena of all were infinite varieties of miniature golf establishments, each with a different theme. These included miniature wild west towns, castles, European villages, pirates treasure islands, everything imaginable accented with such features as fake mountains, lakes, cliffs, waterfalls, palm trees, etc., etc. etc., ad infinitum."

Fortunately each of the two days it took us to get past all of the above was interrupted by a restorative recess. Here you are biking along this strip, which by the way, consists of six lanes of roaring traffic, no bike lane, of course, since we're still in South Carolina. So you spot the sign you're looking for and turn off into a quiet lane that takes you into another world. The first day, that world was the Brookgreen Gardens, a 9,000-acre garden gracefully landscaped with mostly native trees, shrubs, flowers, and a great variety of dramatic statues of Greek gods and goddesses and more. The second day it was the Meher Spiritual Center, managed by devotees of the Indian avatar Meher Baba (“compassionate father”). This is a lovely woodland with small cabins, a library, and other buildings built tastefully of natural wood and blending gently with the landscape. We strolled slowly for hours through these places in meditative gratitude.

Since we crossed the border into North Carolina, bicycling conditions have significantly improved. Many roads in this state have paved shoulders, and often there are alternate routes with little traffic. Fortunately, interpersonal situations and opportunities to talk about the Earth Charter and global people power have been of a consistently higher quality than bicycling conditions throughout the entire trip. Both Carolinas offered many porches, even rocking chairs in front of stores to talk with folks and hand out literature. We never have to approach anyone first. Almost everyone comes up and asks where we're going and what we're about.

The first night out of Charleston, we stopped in front of a tavern and were invited to camp free of charge in a beautiful meadow that was being set up as a camp ground for a motorcycle rally scheduled to begin the next day. We shared a campfire with a colorful group that night but still gave a summary of our message. Mona even sold a copy of her book to an unusual Christian rock musician.

On Pawley's Island near Myrtle Beach, we stayed with a wonderful couple, Rho and Fred Anderson, retired from Lancaster, PA. Rho is still incredibly dynamic, with stories of surviving a 30 foot fall into a ravine, while Fred had horror stories on the state of education in South Carolina (grades solely for good behavior, giving students the answers to the state-mandated tests, etc.). In Wilmington, North Carolina, we stayed with Sally Case, a great social activist from the local UU Fellowship. We conducted two discussion forums in Wilmington, the first in conjunction with a potluck at Sally's home. Wilmington was a special treat for Dick because he lived in Wilmington and taught at the University of North Carolina back in the 70's. Some of his old friends attended the discussions and there were other reunions as well. Mona did a half hour reading from her novel, Alien Child, at Barnes and Noble on Saturday.

We found Wilmington to be a very dynamic place, with the UU church up to 180 members, a brand new sanctuary with two well-led services, and soon a new minister. The choir was great and several people were leading social action projects. Dick got reacquainted with old UU professor friends Grace Burton and Maggie Parish, old math department friend Thad Dankel, and the UU couple John and Anne Colter. Old friends Dave Smith and Langsy Hemvong were out of town.

From Wilmington it was an easy ride to Hampstead and a $32 motel, the Martha Ann. The lady at the convenience store told us “you don’t want to stay there”, but it was under new ownership that had completely refurnished our room! The next day we enjoyed a rare tail wind to Surf City, where we spent a pleasant hour in the sun on the beach - just like we were back in Florida again. Biking on we found that our destination campground had been privatized (all sites sold off to their customary or would be occupants). But that tail wind easily carried us onto Sneads Ferry Campground and Marina, where we ended up staying two nights. This was right on the New River, next to the New River Bridge into Camp Lejeune. There were several other marinas nearby and a real fishing industry.

We had a long talk with an old fisherman named Lee, who wasn’t too happy with hungry pelicans swooping in on his fish as he pulled in the net. He also had several horror stories about gators going after dogs, hogs, even people. Amazingly, he and his wife had actually tried to ride a tandem bicycle – well, whatever $25 could buy. Not much apparently, since a tire had seen fit to ditch its wheel in short order. Anyway, the fishing wasn’t so good. He had a box full of mullet on ice and some spot and croaker; others weren’t having much luck with shrimp or clams either.

A long and quiet ride through Camp Lejeune led to a campsite at the Oak River Campground in Maysville. Along the way we got a call from a reporter from Newport News and pulled over onto a roadside of grass and wildflowers. We had quite a long discussion with him – it’ll be interesting to see if he reports more on the biking or global democracy aspects of our endeavor. Later in Maysville we had another interesting discussion in the Seven-J Café with an amiable old black man named Charles Jones, who owned the TV repair place across the street and was fixing up some other store fronts. His short half block appeared to be all that was left of old commercial Maysville. But this was only his retirement occupation – to keep away from the “boss” (his wife) after 40 years cooking for officers at Camp Lejeune.

The next day a hip younger black man at the convenience store in Pollocksville told us that Charles had been an alcoholic, but had been off the bottle for a decade or so. The younger man apparently knew lots of such secrets – he’d been on crack for 6 years himself and was now telling all his old friends that crack is a killer (people on drugs dying at age 40 of strokes, etc). This articulate man called himself a Christaferian – he is a Christian who celebrates his African roots and plays reggae music at the beach on weekends. More power to him.

New Bern has put us back into the wonderful, welcoming world of Unitarians. Disputatious as ever, of course, but ever so dedicated to holding up “this little liberal light of mine” amidst the old ways rural North Carolina. The segregation here reminded Mona of the story of the belated civil rights struggle around Darien, Georgia, in the 1970s as beautifully described in the book “Praying for Sheetrock”. Here we’ve had three gracious hosts (Paula Urban, Ilona Forgeng and John Knauth, and Shirin and Thomas Dolder), three delicious dinners and sharp discussions, and a church service with 40 people in a 40-member congregation!

Mona’s publisher, Richard Koritz from Greensboro, also showed up with a box of books for her to sign and some for the road too. He has both strong Unitarian and union roots, and bought out “Open Hand Publishing” (www.openhand.com) as a labor of love from Seattlite Anna Johnson a couple of years back. His father, Philip, still a staunch radical, is a good friend of ours in Seattle. We need more progressive publishers like Richard, who has a most interracial family the second time around.

Though some people here have been discouraged by Bush’s defiance of the UN and world opinion, others realize that a serious debate is needed more than ever. As David Korten put it: “Empire or Earth Community?” We see the old ways of empire and warfare leading to global disaster. The principles of Global Democracy and the Earth Charter point us toward a different way. The obstacles may indeed seem formidable, but we’re not alone - global civil society is behind us. We know this from our trips to South Africa and Samoa. It is time to link hands globally - for the sake of the seven generations to come.

More photos of our journey.

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Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, language, and national, ethnic, or social origin.
– Earth Charter principle III.12.a.

We celebrate diversity in cultures, while nurturing their underlying unity.
– Affirmation of the Preamble to the Charter of the Global Peoples Assembly Movement