"They've got cars big as bars, they've got rivers of gold..."
— The Pogues
[there are more cars than legal drivers in the US]

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
—Albus Dumbledore

"A life has to move or it stagnates."
—Beryl Markham

"The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning"
—Ivy Baker Priest.

Rodeo Drive is the shopping zenith of Los Angeles extravagance, wealth and consumerism (Gucci, Cartier, Tiffany, Bijan et al). I wondered, wandering in amazement, how would it feel to be so massively rich and able to indulge in every spending whim? But then I realized that it must feel exactly as I feel, for in most countries people gaze at me in fascination, at my unattainable wealth, at my opportunities and my freedom. And are the enormous, leafy mansions of Bel Air and Santa Monica Boulevard a glorious example of what the world can achieve, or are they an indecent extravagance in a tragically skewed world?

I did not enjoy Los Angeles and it is the only city in the world that I have left earlier than I planned. It is a soulless sprawl, a frogspawn of cities, a lonely place. There is no center, no defining area where you can sit and feel "this is Los Angeles" and therefore it is utterly inaccessible to the fleeting visitor. It is the edge of the world and all of western civilization.

After the structural and personal anonymity of Southern California, Santa Barbara was a beautiful, refreshing welcome into the different world that is Northern California. California reminds me a great deal of South Africa, the coastline is very similar to the Wild Coast, there are vineyards and sunshine and San Francisco and Cape Town are both surrounded by water and countryside. California also seemed a sunnier, quieter, prettier version of England. It is like England on those too-few precious summer days of perfection, when England is heaven and heaven is England with the sweet reek of flowers and trees, a dazzlingly fresh blue sky and immaculate green hills. The days so wonderful that 60 million people doggedly endure the rest of the British year. But in California this is normal. Famous Highway 1 hugs the coast, a winding, clinging cliff-edge road through glowing fields of flowers. Spectacular, hilly and the same infuriating headwind that has riled me on and off since Patagonia. Huge elephant seals lounge territorially like German tourists on the beach. Jagged black rocks guard the shoreline and heavy green waves smash white against them in exaggerated slow motion.

There was a massive outpouring of Irish-ness for St. Patrick's Day. It is certainly a bigger event here in America than it is in Ireland. Enormous volumes of Guinness, rivers dyed green, a celebration of heritage. Even MTV proudly celebrated the occasion - with a stirring, skirling, nostalgic bagpipe rendition of.... 'Flower of Scotland'.

Unfortunately there is not space here to tell you about all the amazing things that you can buy here in the US. I will just use the 'Buggy Bag' as an example: "did you know [the ad exclaims breathlessly], that shopping carts can have up to as many germs as a toilet?! Buy 'Buggy Bag' for plush, quilted 100% seated area coverage." Wonderful. And, of course, completely useless.

And just one more: "The Tie Teacher: revolutionizes learning how to tie a tie. Do you always run out of time getting ready for work every day? Then you need the Tie Teacher. Only $19.95! Ideal for Business Men." I could go on and on and on and I deeply regret that all this cycling prevents me from spending many more intriguing hours watching the shopping channels.

The Golden Gate Bridge is an icon of my journey, like Hagia Sophia, Petra, the Pyramids, Table Mountain, Machu Picchu... Partly, I confess, it is a Lonely Planet tick-sheet mentality, but really these places are a measure for me of how far I have come and a reminder of just how far I still have to go in life. Like all human icons and heroes, the bridge was much smaller in real life than I had imagined it. Next landmark: the Arctic Circle.

So I had arrived in shining white San Francisco. Unoriginal perhaps, but where better to read On The Road; that encapsulation of wanderlust and the excitement of moving, the hope for great times in new places, the potential of new journeys, the people you meet who define and personalize places, times and experiences and a raw excitement for San Francisco. And, boy, here I was at last! Wheee! Little Italy full of Italians and Chinatown full of Chinese and riding my darned bike up Hyde Street (which nearly killed my lungs and legs for Chrissakes!), that crazy steep street you always see in the car chase movies with those wild old trams and the tram-tracks burning silver-white in the sunshine and then down Lombard Street - which they say is the windiest of streets in the whole world, and I do believe them - eight crazy hairpin turns in just one block because the hills of 'Frisco are steeper than you can even imagine.

And San Fran is sure full of interesting people, the ones who are mad to live and I felt so ordinary and un-unusual like I never have done for a couple years now. Homeless guys in Nikes with two shopping carts full of stuff (Two carts! California sure must be doing something right if even these poorest and saddest of guys have gotten more stuff than I do), old Chinese folk in the parks doing Tai-Chi and thinking about the past, and mesmeric dreadlocked girls looking and smiling real pretty. In a cheap Indian restaurant a waiter hollered "Tres naan bread!" and that's three different languages in just three words which must be a kind of record but it sort of tells you what San Francisco is like.

In this city of surprises I was ambling through the slick, quiet financial district of narrow streets and mighty gleaming glass towers when I bumped into the family I had stayed with back in Guadalajara, Mexico. It was fabulous to see them again, and Carlie, my favorite two-year-old, gave me a good excuse to go back and watch the amusing sea-lions on the ghastly Pier 39 again. Who said goodbye is for ever?

I lay in bed and decided that this must be the best view since Anthony's shower in La Paz, Bolivia. The light from Alcatraz raced rhythmically across the ceiling and seared into my brain, "You've come so far; you can't quit now. You've come so far, you can't quit now. You've come so far..." San Francisco had everything that I could possibly want: coffee and the bright bay, beer and oysters, football and sunshine...etc. It was hard to leave. The best city in the world? Probably.

The Redwood forests of Northern California were spell-binding and literally awesome. Thousands of years of majestic silence amongst the tallest trees on earth. Stoic, beautiful, hypnotic, mighty, futile. In the silent forests time felt like it had stood still. Yet some of these trees were alive when Jesus was crucified. It added another powerful perspective to Easter Sunday, especially as a church I passed that day had a note pinned to the door "Sorry - no Service this Easter".

That only a handful of the irreplaceable original forests remain is sad indeed. Two things really struck me: firstly how anyone could be so short-sighted as to want to cut down the few remaining trees but secondly how impressively far-sighted were the original people who thought "hey, we need to preserve these" when the forests were still widespread. I don't think I would have thought of that.

Despite the majesty and splendor of the Redwood Forests there is still a need for kitsch. Horrible RV parks that make Butlins sound appealing and yukky gift shops. But the 'Drive-Thru Tree' was fantastic - the tackiest tourism since viewing the Pyramids of Egypt from inside Kentucky Fried Chicken. It is startling that something as spectacular as a 2000 year old, 300 foot tall tree is not sufficient fascination in itself and so has a huge hole chain-sawed through it so that you can drive your car through it. Such depths of entertainment delight me immensely. It was even a disappointment that they let me ride through the tree for free on my bike. For utter satisfaction I would like to have been swizzled out of a few bucks as well.

I left fabulous California and entered Oregon. I know, I didn't know much about Oregon either. But now I know more - there is lots of rain and lots of trees. Unfair perhaps, but drenching days and long nights in a wet tent and sleeping bag do little to encourage curious-minded travel. The last week has been travel at it's purest, crudest and most pointless - simply moving for motion's sake. Not looking or seeing or learning, just feeling the miles edging along beneath the wheels, taking me ever further from the beginning and ever closer to home.

THANK YOU to McDonald's, Newport, Oregon. Thoroughly wet and miserable my resolve and principles dissolved and I went to McD's for the very reason many avoid it - for an obscene calorie-fest. The manager very kindly gave me a free meal; a generous donation of an impressive 2420 calories.

A STRIKING website: www.bphillips.co.uk

Approximate Timings and Route for North America