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I've covered two thousand miles on my motorbike over these past twenty days. From northern Virginia, where my bike hangs out while I'm in Bermuda, north to Montreal, Quebec for the annual Jazz Festival, then east to the mountains and lakes of central New Hampshire, south to Boston and finally through New England back to VA.

The average of a hundred miles a day doesn't seem like a lot, I suppose, but nearly all those miles were on small winding roads in the mountains, not on major, multilane highways. Then, too, I spent five days at the festival and another five days at a camp on Lake Winnipesaukee, so the actual daily mileage is doubled.

This year, the weather was the outstanding event. Weeks of heavy rain all along the U.S. east had soaked the ground and swelled the rivers. I managed to keep a few raindrops ahead of the deluge from a tropical weather system that caused floods in six states and the District of Columbia.

Rock Creek in DC carved itself a new riverbed. Rock Creek Parkway, my favourite route to avoid DC's traffic was buried under several feet of water and tons of silt.

Amazing scenes

In my passage through Maryland, Pennsylvania and upstate New York, I saw amazing scenes. A small bridge, normally eight or ten feet above its river's surface, became part of a waterfall.

The water had jammed whole trees and other debris against the bridge and was peeling over the roadway like a designer fountain. A farmhouse that was usually several hundred yards from the riverbank and two-stories above ground was now in the middle of the stream with only one story showing above water level.

It poured as I was heading out, and the sun beat down as I was returning. For the last two days of my trip temperatures were in the nineties. Even though I kept mostly to mountain roads, the sun was brutal. I hope I protected my skin - all my stock of sunscreen got used up.

However, I couldn't protect my legs from the heat of the bike's engine. Usually I wear shorts while riding but it was so hot I just had to put on long pants to keep my calves from being broiled. I used to think that the worst weather to ride in was the cold and rain. I now know different.

Actually, it's not the riding that's the biggest problem, it's the non-riding time spent at stoplights or in stop-and-go traffic.

Around me every car, and all the trucks masquerading as cars, pumped extra heat from their air-conditioners into my space that compounded the ambient heat.

I discovered that Boston is the very worst city to drive in these days. Boston's two-decades long effort to improve its traffic situation, known as the Big Dig, has backfired.

Just last week some roofing panels collapsed in the new under-city tunnels that were created to divert traffic from the existing streets. Suddenly, all the traffic that was being diverted, and then some, has been dumped back onto the surface streets. And Bostonians, not known to be the best of drivers, have tied their city traffic up in knots. It took me an hour to get from downtown to where I was staying, just a mile or two away.

Maybe there's a lesson for Bermuda about the hazards of trying to engineer our way out of traffic, and other, problems.

Anyway, the bike and I have safely completed our circuit. One of us has a slight oil leak, the other is saddle-sore - both are exhilarated from the trip, and looking forward to the next one.[[In-content Ad]]

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