What to do next? Help me out….

Okay, Holiday is over. Finito. Koniec filma.  One week in NYC and four weeks driving from NYC to LA means my VSF- bicycle (Wooffie I call her) is ready to rock’n roll again. Enough of driving or walking around. Enough of drive-in fast food restaurants, motel rooms and alcoholic beverages. Enough speaking Finnish or doing 400km distances /day. It’s time to… yes well, it’s time to do what exactly?

Because of  the unique coast-to-coast-road-trip-experience, I decided to travel across the US with an automobile. This trip had much higher importance than following punctually my initial itinerary, and so I flew from Lima to Montreal and cycled to NYC to meet my buddies.

I was thinking that the West Coast will also be interesting to cycle on, so I wasn’t so sad about not being able to cycle the whole way between NYC and LA. I thought riding from LA up to Vancouver would be the best thing to do, not only because of the landscapes but also financially.

But I’m not going to lie to you. The reason why I’m not  up for heading back to Canada is that I’m really tired with the US. As the east coast was easygoing and friendly, the further west we drove, the more I felt uncomfortable. The stolen Iraqi flag posing on the wall of  one random bar in Minnesota, churches and religious signs dominating roads and towns we passed,  bumper stickers calling “Obama Bein Lyin'” or how who had served in which military service or which war, was no more funny. Today I argued with an older worker in a bicycle shop, who had traveled less than me when I was 3-year old, claiming Iran is a dangerous country. Of course if he had been there, or said something intelligent what I didn’t already know, I could’ve agreed. But here are some of his statements:

“You were lucky you were not killed in Iran”

“the US, the police of the World, is justified to interfere with any country to make our  (western) world safer and better”

“If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, it will blow up France first”

So, dear readers ( not to get too much into politics now) I came up with two alternative options.

1) Los Angeles- Mexico City (flight) Frankfurt-Finland

This option is actually a very good one, because it would give me a chance to ride together with this other Finnish cyclist Jukka Salminen. It would also be more adventurous.

On the other hand it is the most expensive one, as the flights from Mexico City to Europe are not cheap. Furthermore, the cheapest connection goes via JFK and I think I can not enter the US  because of the silly visa waiver system.  Returning to Finland in mid October would also mean missing a great deal of the school semester.

Los Angeles/San Diego (flight) Europe- Finland

This option means I would finish my North American tour in few days. I would not reach the 25 000km, BUT it is the cheapest option and I would catch the school semester (by school I mean the Uni). It is the most boring option, but perhaps the wisest.

and finally the option # three

Los Angeles- Vancouver (flight) Frankfurt-Finland

Cheap, safe and effective. On the other hand it could be boring and waist of time? Would miss the school year, but reach the 25 000km.

I’ve been flipping these choices last few weeks frequently, and I can’t make up my mind. So if you have some ideas or advice, please give me a comment. Even one good idea could make the decision easier for me. And of course there could be an option # FOUR too which I haven’t thought of yet…

ps. My ovi blog post from Boston was published meanwhile. Check it out…