Until the most recent decades, the USA was not as friendly to bicycling as it was in other countries. There were few places other than the streets and highways where you could ride your bicycle, and most motorists were not very considerate or careful in sharing the road.

Fortunately, the atmosphere for bicycling has been changing. Perhaps, it is due to the increased awareness of healthy activity that has inspired more people to ride bicycles. The publicity generated by Lance Armstrong's victories in the Tour de France have also helped.

Many cities and states across the USA have developed a much more friendly bicycling environment. They have constructed off-road biking and hiking trails, they have created special bicycle lanes on the streets, and they have promoted an increased awareness of bicyle safety. Seattle, which has long had a healthy living culture, now has bicycle lanes on many streets throughout the city and special bicycle trails along scenic routes. Washington DC and even New York City have done much to improve the bicyling conditions in their cities.

Some states have taken great efforts to improve bicycling conditions not only in the cities but throughout the countryside. I live in Western Pennsylvania, a hilly, rolling landscape with many valleys containing rivers and streams. Years ago, these valleys were all lined with railroad tracks connecting the coal mines and steel mills throughout the area. Those steel mills are all closed. The mines are depleted, and the railroad tracks abandoned.

Pennsylvania has a state program called "rails to trails". Private bicycling organizations with the assistance of state government has been reclaiming these old rail lines and converting them into an extensive network of bicycling trails. Since trains were typically unable to negociate a grade of more than 3%, these paths are nice gentle ways to climb over the many hills and mountains of our region. They make wonderful biclycling paths. Many of them follow wonderfully scenic valleys along side of picturesque rivers and streams.

From Pittsburgh, it is now possible to ride over 100 km of off-road trails around the city, or to ride the beautiful trail along the Youghioghenny River up through the Appalachian Mountains to the state of Maryland and on to Washington DC. This route takes you through some beautiful scenery completely off road for over 500 km.

The turkey is a large bird weighing as much as 6 kg in the wild and up to 12 kg in the domesticated varieties.  In the USA, it has become the traditional symbol of the Thanksgiving Holiday that we celebrate every November.  Many families come together for a large feast on Thanksgiving day, and the featured main dish is normally a large roasted turkey.  To understand how this has come about, you need to learn a little about the early history of the USA.

When the early migration of European settlers came to this continent in the early sixteen hundreds, this land was filled with wild animals, birds and fishes.  The early English colonists arriving along the Northeastern Coast brought with them the traditional seeds and plants from their homeland.  They tilled the soil and planted wheat, oats, barley and peas and the other crops that were commonly grown in England.  Perhaps due to the harsher climate and partly due to their lack of experience in farming, the crops did not flourish and food was not plentiful. 

Soon, the Native American tribes living close to these little European colonies, welcomed the newly arrived immigrants.  They coveted their iron tools and their superior weapons.  Such advanced technology was useful to these Indians, and the weapons of the settlers were a great deterrent protecting them from incursions by their Native American enemies.  They became friends with the settlers and helped them in many ways.  They taught the new people to grow corn (maize), beans and squash.  They taught them to catch the plentiful fish from the seas and rivers, and they taught them to hunt for the wild game.

With the help of their new Indian friends, the European colonists soon learned to flourish in their new homeland.  At the end of the second summer, the colonists that had fled England to escape religious persecution and called themselves Pilgrims, decided to hold a harvest feast in Thanksgiving of their good fortune.  They invited their Indian friends to join them.  According to legend, this great feast of rejoice features not only the maize and squash that they grew, but also the fruits and nuts of the forest and the meats of wild game.  The chief delicacy among these meats was the roasted wild turkey.

 This Thanksgiving feast was reinstated several hundred years later as a national holiday.  We celebrate it all across the USA on the fourth Thursday in November.  By tradition, we have borrowed many of the customs from those early Thanksgiving celebrations, and we serve some of the same dishes.  Chief among these traditions is the cooking of a great roast turkey.

In most homes across the USA, families come together for this festival.  Children come home and bring the grandchildren.  Everyone gathers together for the great feast.  A large turkey weighing as much as 10 or 12 kg is stuffed with a savory filling and roasted.  It is served with traditional side dishes like corn, beans, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes (yams) and pumpkin pie.

After the great meal, most of the men engage in another traditional activity, watching football on the television.

If you come to the USA at this time of year, I suggest you try to get an invitation to celebrate the holiday at the home of a friend or acquaintance.  You cannot really appreciate this holiday by eating a turkey dinner at a restaurant.  You must eat a Thanksgiving feast in someones home to really understand what this holiday means.

There are some summer activities in the USA that are highly popular with US natives but can also provide unique opportunities for foreign visitors to get some intimate glimpses of US culture. 

Indian powows are held throughout the USA on summer weekends.  These tribal or inter-tribal festivals are held for the entertainment and cultural enlightenment of our Native American population, but are typically open to any and all visitors.  They provide a unique glimpse at the cultural, social and spiritual heritage of the Native American peoples.  You can easily attend an Indian powwow, as a guest, and see many Native Americans dressed in spectacular dance attire, as they participate in dancing, singing and drumming competitions.  Just check the Internet by searching under "Indian powwows"  to find the dates and locations of local events.

Rodeos are another popular summer event held throughout the USA, but most especially in the Western states.  Nearly every village, town and city in the Western states has at least one rodeo on a summer weekend, with larger state, regional or chapionship rodeos held at specific locations on designated dates.  Originally designed as an informal gathering where vaqueros or cowboys came together to show off their ranching skills, modern rodeos have evolved into a major sporting event where amature or professional rodeo stars compete for money and prizes.

Most events are still related to ranching and riding skills.  Bronco busting involves the taming of wild horses to make them into rideable domesticated animals.  Barrel racing and trick riding involves the demonstration of horseback riding skills as used in ranching.  Calf roping and steer roping showcase the skills of a cowboy engaged in actual ranch work prior to branding or treating cattle.  Bulldogging or steer wrestling involves similar but more dangerous skills.   Bull riding, however,  is not a typical ranching skill, but involves the daring bravado of a cowboy willing to gamble his life and limbs to prove his skill and courage.

You can attend a rodeo on your visit to the USA, by doing an Internet search on "rodeos" to find the location and dates for rodeos around the USA.  Amateur rodeos are scattered throughout the smaller towns and cities.  They typically include younger cowboys and cowgirls competing against their friends and neighbors in local competitions.  These events tend to be more intimate with many real cowboys and ranchers in attendancel.  Professional rodeos are typically held in the larger cities.  The competitors are professional rodeo stars who compete regularly for money and prizes.  These are more like sporting events that draw larger crowds of spectators as an entertainment event.  There are a few ongoing rodeos at specific venues in various locations.  They tend to be entertainment events held primarily for tourists and other spectators. 

Another way to taste the authentic culture of the USA, is by attending a county fair or a state fair.  Each state is divided into a number of governmental districts usually called counties. (In Louisiana, they are called parishes, and in Alaska they are called boroughs.)  Most counties hold annual fairs during the summer months, and most states hold one grand fair for the entire state.

The county fairs have been discontinued or greatly diminished in some of the more urban areas, but they still flourish in the rural farming and ranching areas of the USA.  For many of the counties located in the MidWest or the western parts of the country, the county fair is the greatest social event of the year. 

At a typical county fair, you can see hundreds of the finest examples of locally grown cattle, horses, sheep, chickens, ducks, rabbits and other forms of livestock.  For nearly a week, these creatures are paraded in a local arena and judged to determine who has raised the finest specimens of each breed.   In addition to the livestock, local producers bring in examples of their finest corn, potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes and garden produce to be judged.   Prizes are awarded for the best quality.  Farm families bring in their home-made jellies, canned goods, cakes, pies and cookies to likewise be judged.

There is always entertainment of various sorts at the county fair.  It might include bands playing old time favorites or modern rock and roll  Sometimes, local dance clubs, or ethnic heritage groups perform song or dance.  Rodeos, powwows, stock car races, demolition derbys, tractor pulls, horse races, or athletic events could be included.  Typically, a carnival is attached to the fair offering amusement rides, games and all sorts of food and drink.  You can normally buy hot dogs, hamburgers, local barbeque, funnel cakes, cotton candy, ice cream, pies and all sorts of local delicacies.  The evening is usually ended with a nighttime display of fireworks.

When you go to the fair, you will see families with children and elderly relatives walking around looking at the livestock, watching the judging, partaking of the entertainments and eating all sorts of food.  They will include the farmers, ranchers and workers from the surrounding communities.  They go to the fair not just for entertainment but also to meet their friends and neighbors.  It is typically an important social event for them.  This is a great place to see some of the authentic hidden culture of the USA. 

Gold was discovered at a small mountain stream n California during 1848.  That monumental discovery soon attracted hundreds of thousands of young men who ventured across the dangerous and unsettled continent of North America in search of their fortunes.  This army of westward immigrants were originally known as "fourty niners" in commemoration of the year of the great migration. 

From 1849 until the end of the nineteenth century, "gold fever" swept across the western parts of the United States of America.  "Prospecters" in search of Gold, Silver and other precious metals searched all over California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and other states.  Both Gold and Silver were eventually found in a number of different locations.

Each fortuitous find drew a flood of fortune seekers hoping to profit by the newly found riches.  Within weeks, the site of any new mineral find was quickly transformed into a crowded, busy new "gold camp".  A few months later, the camp became a prospering new "gold town" with saloons, brothels, dance halls, stores and hotels.  The population of some of the gold towns grew from zero to thousands of inhabitants in just a few months.  They were also known as "boom towns" because of their booming local economy based on the riches extracted from their mines.

These boom towns were wild raucous places were money flowed like water.  Drinking, gambling and bawdy entertainment were ubiquitous.  Drunken brawls, robberies, gun fights and murders were common daily occurances.  Many of the tales of the "Wild West" and its infamous "outlaws", "bandits" and "gunfighters" took place in these gold towns.

Unfortunately, the riches proved transitory as the gold and silver was extracted.  Most of the gold towns were "busted" or economically ruined within a few short years. when their mineral resources were exhausted.  The fortune seekers soon departed for more promising locations.  The saloons, brothels, stores, dancehalls and hotels closed.  Most of the population moved away.  Most of the old gold towns were completely abondened when the last inhabitants left, and only the empty shells of buildings and the remnants of discarded mining equipment was left to show that a town once existed.  They became "ghost towns"

There are still many ghost towns in existance across the western half of the USA.  In most cases, only the foundations of some buildings and a few crumbling chimneys mark the location of a once booming gold town.  In a few cases, the surviving remnants of an old ghost town have survived or have been preserved to mark the site of a departed boom town.  One such location is the ghost town of Bodie California.  Located on a high mountain plateau west of Yosemite Park and near Mono Lake, this old gold town that once claimed a population of 10,000 inhabitants, now consists of several dozens of decrepit buildings, an array of crumbling old mining equipment and a large gold and silver processing facility.  The state of California has converted it into a historical park that you can visit.  It is but one of nearly a hundred old ghost towns that you can visit in the West.

More rare are the old gold towns that somehow survived without becoming a ghost town.  One well known survivor is not a gold town at all, but was originally a borax town on the edge of Death Valley.  It is the small, almost ghost town, of Death Valley Junction California that was saved from extinction by Marta Becket, an artist and ballet dancer who moved to this nearly abandoned corner of the desert in 1962.  Marta, lovingly, restored the old Amaragosa Opera House, and for 35 years has held solo performances on its stage before a typical audience of local desert inhabitants and curious tourists.  You can still see Marta perform every Sunday.

Another famous gold town has been preserved in Northern Nevada near Carson City and Lake Tahoe.  It is Virginia City Nevada, perched on the side of a mountain and straddling the once fabulously rich Comstock Silver Vein.  Many of the original buildings have been preserved or restored to form a modern representation of the ofd town in its boom times.  You can visit this town, eat in its several restaurants, stay at one of its old-time hotels, or shop in its many stores and souvenir shops.

One of the most famous Wild West gold towns is located in the southeastern corner of Arizona.  In 1877, an emigree from Pennsylvania named Ed Schieffelin accompanied an army detachment as a part-time scout to Fort Huachuca, southwest of Tucson.  When he proposed to go prospecting for gold alone in the forbidding desert where unconquered Apache Indians were wont to kill and mutilate any interloper, the soldiers laughed at him, and joked that the only rock he would find would be his own tombstone.  .Ed discovered a rich lode of Silver about ten miles east of the fort.  He named his mine "the Tombstone" and the town that grew at that site also became known as Tombstone Arizona.

Like most gold towns, Tombstone soon acquired a reputation for booming wealth, riotous entertainments and lawlessness.  By 1877, two opposing factions dominated the local society.  The "cowboys" were rural ranchers who also engaged in cattle rustling (stealing), robbery, smuggling and even murder. The townfolk, mostly immigrant miners from Cornwall England and Germany, were in favor of establishing order and peace. They had elected a Sheriff and outlawed the carrying of firearms within the town.  On the evening of October 26, 1881, violence erupted when a group of cowboys including the Clanton brothers and the McLaury brothers came to town armed and threatening to kill Doc Holliday, the gunfighter, gambler, friend of Wyatt Earp.  Deputy US marshall, Virgil Earp with brothers Wyatt and Frank plus Doc Holliday went together to disarm and arrest the cowboys.  In the ensuing gunfight, Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and Tom McLaury were killed.  Doc Holliday, Frank and Virgil Earp were wounded.  This altercation is known historically as "the Gunfight at the OK corral" and has been the subject of numerous books and films.

You can visit Tombstone Arizona and see many of the old buildings as they existed at the time of the gunfight.  Some of the local citizens even dress up in nineteenth century costume and demonstrate shooting and simulated gunfights.  You can even go to "boot hill", as the local cemetary is known, and see the graves of Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers.

Another, well preserved, famous wild west gold town is Deadwood South Dakota.  This boom town sprouted in the sacred Indian lands of the Black Hills soon after gold was discovered.  It also had a reputation for lavish wealth, bawdy entertainment and violent lawlessness.  It was in Deadwood on August 2, 1876 that the famous lawman and gunfighter named Wild Bill Hickock was shot dead as he played poker in a saloon.  His poker hand contained two aces and two eights which has ever since been known as "the dead mans hand" in poker.  Calamity Jane, colorful hard-drinking, course talking and gun-toting companion to Wild Bill was a prominent resident of Deadwood at the time.  Numerous books and films have been released depicting the boom times in Deadwood and the lives of its two most colorful citizens.  You can visit Deadwood and still see the graves of Wild Bill hickock and Calamity Jane.  

It is nearly time for another Superbowl, the final championship game that determines the best professional football team in the USA for the past year.  This gala event will be held in Dallas Texas, and 80,000 lucky people will spend lots of money to go and see it, while another 100 million people will watch it at home.  On Sunday, many people across the US will invite their friends and neighbors to come into their homes for a Superbowl Party.  The hosts will serve beer, snacks and food while their guests will sit in front of the televisions and cheer for their favorite teams.  Football is the major sports attraction in the USA.

I live in Pittsburgh, where football is more than an attraction.  It is an obsession.  Throughout the fall and winter months, you always know when the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing a Sunday football game.  On the Friday before the game, most of the residents of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area will be wearing the black and gold Steelers colors.  If you go into a bank, most of the emplyees will be dressed in black and gold football jerseys.  If you go to a fast food restaurant, to a local supermarket, to any shop or business in the area, you will see black and gold jerseys on most of the employees.  In the schools, most of the children will be wearing Steeler Jerseys with their favorite player's number.  Office workers will be wearing them at their desks.  The entire city and all of the surrounding communities will be populated by folks wearing black and gold football jerseys.

The football stadium in Pittsburgh seats over 60,000 spectators, yet it is nearly impssible to buy a ticket for any Steeler game.  The entire stadium is sold out for every game of the season nearly a year in advance.  If you are fortunate enough to own the rights to purchase some season tickets, you will keep them for your entire lifetime, and pass them on to your children when you die.  People who wish to buy season tickets must place their name on a list, then wait at least ten years until enough people die or move out of town for some tickets to become available.

On the day of a Steeler game in Pittsburgh, many ticket holders arrive at the stadium parking lots at least six to eight hours before the game is scheduled to begin.  A few drive black and gold cars, trucks or RVs with Steeler football emblems painted on the sides.  They come for the ritual pre-game "tailgate parties".  By two hours before the start of the game, every parking lot within a mile radius of the stadium will be filled with noisy, festive parties.  There will be thousands of grills roasting hot dogs, hamburgers and sausages.  Tables will be laden with all sorts of foods and snacks.  Radios and CD players will be blaring rock and roll music and Steeler fight songs.  Coolers will be filled with cans of beer, with bottles of beer, and even with kegs of beer.  Each of the parties will be populated with dozens of black and gold clad Steeler fans.  Together, these tens of thousands of semi-inebriated, raucuous, black and gold clad football fanatics form an immense outdoor fiesta.  This occurs before every Steeler football game.

Within the stadium, the people are likewise dressed in Steeler colors except for those few rooting for the opposing team.  The attendees cheer, yell, chant and wave their yellow "terrible towels".  At critical times during the play, the entire stadium becomes a sea of waving yellow towels.  The noise level in the stadium is often deafening.

When the Pittsburgh Steelers play football in another city, there are always thousands of folks wearing black and gold that decend upon the foreign playing field.  No matter what city they play in, no matter what team they play, there are always thousands of black and gold jerseys in attendance waving their yellow towels and cheering for the Steelers.  They are called the "Steeler Army"  and they travel across the land to watch their beloved football team play.  In every city, there is a cadre of resident Steeler fans from folks who emigrated from Pittsburgh.  They remain Steeler fans for life.  Their children become Steeler fans.  Their grandchildren become Steeler fans.  In every major city of the USA, there is one or more Steeler bars where the black and gold clad fans congregate to watch every game.  In Phoenix, Arizona, nearly 2,000 miles away from Pittsburgh, the local Steeler bar attracts three or four hundred fans to watch every game.  When the Steelers played in the championship playoffs, over 2,000 fans came to the bar to watch the game and cheer for their team.

This year, there is great rejoicing in Pittsburgh.  The Steelers won their divisional championship, and they will play in the Superbowl against the Green Bay Packers from Wisconsin next Sunday. They have already won six super bowl championships, more than any other team.  Sunday, they will try to make it seven.

Autumn is the time of year when many of the Florida residents drive north to the New England states for the great Fall foliage spectacle.  Living in the semitropical lands does not provide much variety of seasonal change.  The palm trees and the jungle foliage stay green most of the year except when they dry out to a dull brown during the arid periods. As a contrast, the Northern Autumnal change, when the leaves on the hardwood trees turn all shades of yellow, orange, scarlet and umber, is quite a visual treat for Southern residents.

As a contrarian, I headed South to the Florida Beaches leaving behind the fall foliage spectacle.  Autumn is a great time of year to visit Florida.  The weather is still wonderful and the tourist crowds are non existant.

The real tourist season in Florida has not started yet.  The winter crowds will begin to arrive in November, and surge right after the Christmas holidays.  That is when the retired folks from the upper states and the Canadian Provinces flee the frigid temperatures for their Florida Winter homes.  The year-round residents of Florida call them "the snow birds".  They migrate south every winter, stay until April or May, then head back north to spend the summer months with their grandchildren.

June, July and August would normally be slow months due to the hot temperatures and daily rainstorms, but it brings a different influx of tourists.  Those are the months when most schools in the USA close for their summer vacation period.  Families from all across the country, take advantage of this extended school break, pack up their children and head south right into the hot wet and uncomfortable climate of Florida.  Orlando becomes packed with families visiting Disney World and the other amusement facilities.  The beaches on both sides of the peninsula become crowded with vacationing families. 

At the beginning of September, schools reopen all across the country.  The vacationing families disappear.  Florida becomes nearly deserted.  This quiet respite last but a few months before the snowbirds return.

September - October is a great time of year to vacation in Florida.  The daily temperatures are still quite warm, typically in the 80s (30 C).  The ocean waters are warm enough to swim, and the heat is not as unbearable as in the summer months.  Best of all, no tourist crowds!  The beaches are nearly deserted.  Hotels offer reduced bargain rates, and there are no long waits at the restaurants.  It is, however, the middle of the Hurricane season, so there is always a slight chance that one of those monster storms can ruin your holiday plans. 

I just spent a week in Fort Lauderdale, and there was one tropical storm off the coast of Cuba.  It sent us a few rain showers one day, but they lasted only a few hours.  Generally, the hurricane threat is quite small, and danger can easily be avoided.

I had a great time.  The weather was wonderful,  The deserted beaches were great.  The hotel rates were a bargain.  Many restaurants offered special bargain prices,  Our hotel swimming pool had only a few guests lounging in the sun.  They were mostly veteram German and British tourists that have learned to come to Florida during the slack period and take advantage of the bargain rates and the near solitude.

Halloween is a rather unusual holiday in the USA.  It is not an occasion to get time off from work, for vacation holidays, for family gatherings, or for any particular religious or secular celebrations.  It is, however, a fun time for children and their parents.

It began many hundreds of years ago with a pagan Celtic Festival commemmorating the Autumn harvest which was combined with a Christian holiday celebrated on nearly the same date.  The ancient name for it was "All Hallowed Evening"  which became shortened to "All Hallowed Even" and eventually to "Hallow'een". 

The ancient pagan roots of this festival were associated with the superstitious belief that the barrier between the physical "real" world and another "spiritual world" were somehow opened at this time of year.   That spiritual world was supposedly inhabited by the ghosts of the dead, by demons and by malevolent spirits.  Thus, Halloween has long been associated with ghosts, goblins, witches, devils and demons. 

Many years ago, Halloween was not widely celebrated in the USA, but young children called it "Devil's Night".  They used it as an occasion to play pranks and do mischevious deeds on their neighbors and blame it on the rampant ghosts or devils.  Writing on windows with soap, festooning trees and shrubs with toilet tissue, tipping over outdoor toilets or relocating front gates were typical Devil's Night acts.   The perpetrators often wore ghostly costumes to scare the local citizens.  Some of the neighbors resorted to bribing the local hooligans with candy, fruits or confections to avoid the mischevious tricks.

From that early beginning, came the custom of "trick or treat".  Children would dress in costumes and would knock on doors in the neighborhood shouting "trick or treat". The implied message was: "Either give me some candy or I will play a trick on you!"  This custom was widely adopted, and is still practiced to this day.

If you visit any town, village or suburban neighorhood in the USA on Halloween evening, you will probably be greeted with an unusual scene.  The local police often erect barricades, set up warning signs or light flares along the neighborhood streets as a warning for motorists to exert extreme caution, since many of the local children will be walking about.  At a predetermined time after dusk like 6 PM the local fire sirens will blare or the church bells will ring signifying the beginning of "trick or treat". 

Very soon, the streets and sidewalks of the neighborhood will be filled with groups of children all dressed in costumes.  Many will sport the traditional Halloween attire of witches, ghosts, goblins, vampires and devils.  Others will become cowboys, ballerinas, robots, princesses, bears, rabbits and superheros.  They will go house to house ringing doorbells and shouting "trick or treat".  Soon their little bags will be filled with candies and treats.  At 8 PM the same siren or church bell will sound the end of the trick or treat period, and all of the children will return home.

Some people prepare for this nightime children's fest at Halloween by decorating their houses and yards.  Weeks beforehand, you can see witches in doorways, ghosts on the roofs, monsters in the yards, giant spiderwebs on the shrubbery and vampire bats in the trees of people's homes.  One typical ornament is the jack-o-lantern or large pumpkin hollowed out and carved into a grinning face.  These are usually placed on the doorstep and illuminated by a candle placed within the pumpkin.  We usually decorate our home minimally for this occasion, but one neighbor (the same one that festoons his house with ten thousand lights at Christmas) typically creates a Halloween extravaganza in his front yard.  He constructs a graveyard with dozens of tombstones, a moving skeleton and a life-sized Frankenstein monster all eerily illuminated by colored lights shining through a dense fog created by a smoke machine. 

Any family wishing to participate in the trick or treat ritual can simply turn on their porch light or front door lignt.  A darkened house indicates to all that the family will not participate.  Naturally, there are no tricks played on anyone.  We always buy several large bags of candy treats, as we normally expect to be visited by about 150 little ghosts and goblins on trick or treat night.

Another tradition of this holiday is the Halloween Parade.  Many towns and villages and some cities host great costume parades on Halloween.  These parades feature the usual marching bands and firetrucks, plus droves of local children and adults alike dressed in costume.  Two of the most famous Halloween Parades are the ones held at Greenwich Village in New York City and in San Francisco.  In both of these cities the local gay and *** communities contribute to the success by creating many elaborate and fantastic costumes which they display during the parade.

There are some costume parties at people's homes and a few at clubs or bars, but they are not very common.  Halloween is usually a holiday for the children.  It is a time of great fun for all the young children who are already anticipating their reewards from trick or treat.

Route 66 is a myth that continues in spite of the obvious contraditctions of present-day reality.  The old "mother road" was a great dream that reached its culmination more than 75 years ago, and already began its slow deterioration nearly 50 years ago.  Today, there is little left of the authentic route 66 other than a few segments scattered along its 2,000 mile original.length and preserved primarily for the tourist industry to promote.  If you want to experience the authentic route 66, you will undoubtedly be disappointed.  You must drive many miles on grand new interstate highways searching for short snatches of the old route 66 roadway.  Some of the segments have been reconstructed with genuine, original-looking, Route 66 tourist attractions to entertain you and to induce you to part with some of your tourist dollars.  To me, it all seems very commercial and very artificial.

I prefer the backroads that still exist in their original pristine conditions all across the USA.  You can find them in every state, in all parts of the country.  You just have to look for them.

Route 12 in southern Utah is one of those roads that I mentioned before.  It travels past the magnificent geological splendor of Bryce Canyon National Park, and that wonderful motel/resort known as Ruby's Inn with its restaurant, riding stable, campground and rodeo.  The road skirts through the desert canyons of Escalante National Park and teeters along the spine of a magnificent saddle ridge known as the Hogback, then climbs through sub-alpine medows before decending into Capitol Reef National Park.  Along the way, you can stop for gas along side of a pickup truck towing a trailer cntaining a pair of saddled horses.  You can eat at a cowboy cafe.  This is the real authentic USA.

In Central Pennsylvania or Northern Ohio, you can drive along country roads through Amish farmlands.  The beautiful, well-maintained barns and farmhouses, along the way, have no electric or telephone wires, and the clotheslines in the backyards have quaint old-fashioned clothes hanging to dry.  As you drive, you may have to slow your car to a crawl while following a horse and buggy driven by a man wearing a black suit and tan straw hat with his wife in an ankle length blue dress and white bonnet.  At the local markets, you can buy fresh home-grown produce, canned fruits and fresh baked pies. In the local cafes, you can eat delicious wholesome meals of sauerkraut, roast pork, sausages, potato filling and home-made shoofly pie.  This is also the real authentic USA.

Highway One, the old coastal road along the Atlantic seaboard, goes through fishing villages, beach resorts and seaside communities on its way from Canada to Florida.  The southernmost hundred miles becomes the overseas highway as it passes over numerous bridges and highways, island hopping its way to Key West.  This road has a unique collection of small villages, dive shops, fishing outfitteers, seafood restaurants, surf shops, tourist attractions, motels and campgrounds.  The local inhabitants seem to be an interesting collection of refugees from the humdrum civilized world of the mainland that have come to the islands for that casual Jimmy Buffet life of leisure.  This too is the real authentic USA.

I have been on highways in the western deserts where I drove for over an hour and saw no town, no house, no people and no other cars on the road.  I drove up mountain trails in Colorado where the boulder strewn track climbed thousands of feet though desolate forest and ended in a peaceful alpine valley with nothing but antelope and mountain goats to hear the echos of your voice.  I drove along rugged coastal roads in the northwest that ended at an isolated Indian village on a Native American Reservation. These are all real authentic USA roads.

You don't need to seek the faded dream of an old road that no longer exists.  There are plenty of authentic US roads that are alive and well in the here and now. 

The Southwestern part of the USA was greatly influenced by the early colonization of Spanish settlers.  They introduced cows and horses to the new world, and formed the first "rancheros" with horse mounted "vaqueros" to tend their cattle.  The European settlers that came later quickly adopted many of the Spanish customs and practices.  These newer English, Irish and German immigrants learned to herd cattle on the open range lands.  They called their farms "ranches" and used horse mounted "cattle boys" to tend the herds.  Those cattle boys became known as cowboys.

The era of the cowboy reached its peak just after the great Civil War in the USA when millions of unclaimed cattle roamed freely on the vast grasslands of Texas.  Enterprising investors hired local cowboys to roundup the cattle, brand them to establish ownership, and drive them hundreds of miles north to the railroads for shipment to the East Coast markets.  The skills of the cowboy in riding, roping, handling cattle and living on the open range became legendary, but the historic era of the cowboy lasted only fifty years.  Encroaching civilization and expansion of the railroads soon made the trail drives unnecessary.

Today, the great open grasslands are divided up and fenced into smaller farms and ranches.  Most cattle are tended by ranch hands riding on all-terrain vehicles or four-wheel-drive pickup trucks.  Where have all the cowboys gone?

You can still find plenty of folks wearing the ten-gallon hats and the high-heeled cowboy boots favored by the old cowboys.  Nevertheless, most of them are farmers, truck drivers, factory workers or store owners that have never ridden a horse or been close to a cow.  These are not the real cowboys. 

There are still a few ranches in the West that practice the old cowboy methods.  In places like Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, where the ranchers must move their cattle to upper elevations in the summer and back down to the valleys in winter, some of them still use cowboys to drive the herds and to tend to the cattle.  You can find a few authentic cowboys on these ranches.

There are also professional cowboys that make their living by following the rodeo circuit from town to town and competing in the various cowboy arts.  These "rodeo cowboys" are highly proficient in the skills of riding, roping, bronco bustin and bull riding.  They compete at rodeos nearly every weekend, unless they are nursing their wounds and broken bones.  These rodeo stars are really professional athletes or performers that compete for prize money, but most of them started out as real cowboys working on a ranch.

Today, cowboy is more descriptive of a lifestyle than a profession.  There are a lot of cowboys roaming around the western states.  They don't always dress in the fancy cowboy garb.  Most of them wear old faded jeans with well-worn cowboy "work boots" and a bedraggled wide-brimmed hat.  They often drive a beat-up pickup truck with an old saddle in the back and perhaps a horse trailer hitched behind.  These cowboys often work on farms or ranches.  Sometimes, they take summer jobs working on construction or road repair.  In the winter, they drive snow plows or shool buses.  Most of them drift from job to job, and long term relationships such as marriage are not their strong suites.  The real cowboy prefers to work outdoors especially on horseback, or at least in the close proximity to cattle and horses.  He shuns indoor work and abhors regimented factory environments.

I met such a cowboy in a small Colorado town.  He sat on the porch of a local convenience store whittling at a piece of wood with his pocket knife.  An old brown dog lay at his feet.  He noticed that I was clearly an out-of-town tourist and immediately struck up a conversation with me.  He was a very talkative fellow.  He told me that he worked on the nearby ranches during the summer months, tending to the horses and cleaning the stables.  During the winter he drove a local school bus and sometimes helped the road salting crews on the highway maintenence.  He had lived in Montana, in Wyoming, Texas, Arizona and California.  He was married for two years and worked a steady job in Phoenix, but discovered that he was not "cut out" for married life.  Now, he had a small trailer parked behind the firehall.  It was just big enough for him and his dog.  I spent the greater part of an hour talking to this cowboy, and he told me many interesting and entertaining tales about his life.  He was a real cowboy.

Philadelphia is known as the "city of brotherly love" and sometimes as the "birthplace of independence" or the "home of the Liberty Bell.  To many people living in the USA, it is also known as the home of the Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich.  These culinary delicacies are now popular all across the country, but they originated in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.  In many restaurants and fast-food kiosks across the land, the Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich is a very popular luncheon fare.

The original Philadelphia Steak Sandwich was reputedly invented by Pat Olivieri in 1933 and sold from his little hot dog stand in the South Side of Philadelphia.  It consisted of thinly sliced rib eye steak grilled and served on an Italian bread roll.  Some years later, Pat added Cheese Wiz, a semi-liquid cheese sauce, to the sandwich; and thus, the first Cheese Steak was born.  You can still get a great cheese steak sandwich at that original location on Ninth Street in South Philadelphia.  The little restaurant is called Pat's King of Steaks, and it has become a Philadelphia landmark.

If you go to Pat's little corner restaurant, with its outdoor seating, you will notice that an array of municipal workers, policemen, firemen, construction workers and office personnel all flock to Pat's King of Steaks for a quick midday meal.  This is not just a tourist attraction.  It is the place where the local natives go to eat.

The jargon may confuse you at first.  The staff at Pat's never call their sandwiches cheesesteaks.  They call them steak sandwiches.  A "wiz" is a steak sandwich with cheese, and "wit" means with fried onions.  When you go to Pat's, I recommend you ask for a "wiz wit".

Across the street from Pat's is another landmark eatery, adorned with colorful neon signs, called Geno's Steaks.  This is possibly the second oldest cheese steak restaurant in Philadelphia.  It also serves steak sandwiches with Cheese Wiz.  Most of the local residents have an opinion on which restaurant serves the best cheese steak.

I was in Philadelphia on business last week, and I decided to indulge in a nice Philly Cheese steak luncheon.  This time, I went to Tony Luke's reataurant just off the exit from I-95 under the Walt Whitman Bridge.  Tony Luke's has improved on the original Philly Wiz recipe.  He serves his own Tony Luke's Italian Cheese Steak and even a Tony Luke's Italian Pork Sandwich.  They features the same thinly-sliced and grilled meats, but the sandwiches come topped with aged provolone cheese and cooked broccoli rabe.  This is the gourmet verstion of the Philly Cheese Steak, and it is quite delicious.

If you are driving south or north on I-95, that great coastal interstate highway, and you find yourself passing through Philadelphia, you can easily pause in your journey to sample one of Tony Luke's delicacies.  Just watch for the exit to the Walt Whitman Bridge, and go off I-95 just a few hundred meters.  Do not cross the bridge.  Find the ramp to East Oregon Street.  Tony Luke's two restaurants are right there under the bridge.

When the first European colonists arrived in North America, they brought with them some domesticated animals that had never been seen by Native Americans.  They brought cattle, pigs and horses.  Some of these animals escaped, or were lost, and began living in the wilderness of this new continent.

Wild pigs, the decendants of domesticated pigs first introduced by Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century, still live in many of the Southern states extending from Florida to Texas.  Herds of wild beef cattle roamed the vast plains of Texas and Mexico until the end of the nineteenth century, when cowboys captured most of them, and drove them North to the railroad towns in Kansas for sale to the hungry cities in the East.  Wild horses, known as mustangs, populated many of the Western states, and they still roam in certain areas.

These swift, sturdy horses completely changed the life of the Native American people living on the Great Plains of the Midwest and West.  The Indians learned to capture and domesticate the wild horses.  They used them for transporting their people and their posessions across great distances.  They became proficient horseback hunters pursuing the great bison herds across the plains.  They also become fearsome mounted warriors.

Cowboys also learned to capture the wild mustangs.  Taming them and training them became a legendary part of the cowboy life. 

The story of the wild mustangs is part of the legendary history of the Wild West.  Great herds of these swift and graceful creatures used to roam the plains and mountains all across the Western parts of the USA.  They became the swift warhorses of the Comanche and Sioux warriors.  They became the resiliant work horse of the cowboy.  For every one that was captured and domesticated, there were always a few more that continued to roam free and wild.

Unfortunately, the ranches and farms that now blanket much of the Western states has driven the mustang off its traditional homeland.  The remaining animals still living in the wild have been relegated to the barren deserts and inaccessible wilderness areas.  They still roam free, but their numbers are few.

One of the areas where you can still find mustangs living in the wild is in the deserts of Nevada.  Some of these wild horses still roam the vast deserts and mountains grazing on the sparse vegetation and frequenting the isolated water supplies.  When you visit Las Vegas, you can drive to the Red Rock Conservation area at the edge of the surrounding mountains just thirrty minutes from downtown.  If you are patient and lucky, you might just see a few mustangs roaming free.

In the Northern parts of the state of Nevada, there are approximately 3,000 mustangs living in the barren wastelands.  Our government wildlife conservation people say that the area cannot support such a large population.  They believe that the land can only support a herd of less than 1,000 horses.  The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has begun a great roundup of mustangs in the Calico Mountains of Nevada using helicopters.  They hope to capture nearly 2,000 mustangs to reduce the population.  The captured horses will be placed for adoption by anyone that would like to own one of these remnants of the legenday days of the Wild West.  Here is a link to the BLM page about this mustang adoption program. 

I didn"t think that I would like Las Vegas.  I don't gamble, and I prefer natural attractions like geological wonders and wilderness beauty to any man-made features.  I thought that I would be revolted by the crass commercialism and the over-the-top glitzy excess.

Instead, I was pleasantly suprised when I first saw Las Vegas over ten years ago.  It was gaudy, glitzy and excessive beyond description.  It was over-the-top and tacky.   Here was a modern-day Babylon of sensual delight constructed on a monumental scale in a barren desert converted into a commercial playground.  It was fueled by greed, corruption and the insatiable thist for gratification.

I felt like an ancient pilgrim entering the valley of kings in Egypt to marvel at the immense pyramids and architectural wonders.  Or, like a country farmer from the far-flung provinces of the old Roman Empire upon first entering the imperial city of Rome with its unfanthomable splendor.

As I drove down the Strip for the first time, I gaped at the immense glass pyramid with its larger-than-original Sphinx entry, at the scaled-down version of the New York skyline complete with Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty, at the tropical island paradise surrounding a faux volcano that spouted fiery eruptions every hour, at the full-sized Piazza del Marco and at the half-sized Eifel Tower.  I marvelled at the miles of neon lights and the multitude of fountains and waterfalls gracing this converted desert wasteland.  There is no other place like it on this planet.

Here was the world's most unique monument to excess and greed, but it was great fun.  You could partake of culinary feasts and a plethora of entertainment diversions at reasonable prices.  You could gawk at faux architectural splendor for free.  All this is provided to you by the great gambling casinos in hopes of enticing you into their gaming halls.  I love it! 

Since Las Vegas is the favorite destination for most US native tourists, the airlines provide a wide selection of inexpensive flights to the city from everywhere in the USA.  For the same reason, car rentals and hotel rates are frequently available at bargain prices.  I just spent a few days in Vegas, and was amazed at the numerous bargains available.  Even the newer, fancier casinos were offering rooms at less than $100 per night on weekdays.  The older, less popular hotels were offering rooms at less than half that price.  I even saw some rooms advertised as low as $29 per night.

Nearly all of the casinos were offering package deals that included meals at their restaurants and entertainment tickets for a single bargain price.  If you don't gamble and lose your money at the gaming tables, Las Vegas can be a bargain vacation.

I love Las Vegas for another reason.  It is centrally located in the Southwest part of the USA in the midst of some of the most spectacular natural scenery in the world.  The Grand Canyon or Sedona are less than a half-day drive from the Strip. Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon are about the same distance.  Red Rock Canyon, the Valley of Fire and Death Valley are even closer.  

On this most recent trip, I took advantage of the cheap airfares, inexpensive car rentals and bargain priced accommodations to fly into Las Vegas, to see a Broadway style musical, to have dinner at a fine restaurant, then went hiking in the scenic beauty of Red Rock Canyon.  It was great fun and it was inexpensive.

Contrary to popular international beliefs, we do not eat only fast food in the USA.  It is true that fast food is very popular in the US, but we also have many traditional sit-down-and-eat restaurants including some really fine-dining establishments.  These restaurants tend to fall into several loosely-defined categories.

The chain restaurants are owned and operated by large corporations, and they have numerous facilities in various cities and towns across the country.  Their menus are typically similar in every location, and their quality is quite consistent.  if you frequent these type of restaurants, you can be fairly sure of the type abd quality of food that you will be served.  I go to such restaurants when I am looking for casual unadventuresome dining.  The chain restaurants include: TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, Houlihans and Chilis offering traditional American fare; Red Lobster and Joe's Crabshack offering seafood; the Olive Garden with Italian cuisine, or the Cracker Barrel with southern cooking.  There are many others.

When traveling, I often prefer to seek out more adventuresome dining experiences such as sampling the regional specialties in popular local restaurants.  I usually find those restaurants by asking for recommendations from the people I meet in the area.  They frequently tell me of some obscure local restaurant that offers the best fried chicken, the best barbeque, the best home made meatloaf or the best apple pie in town.  These restaurants often have names like "Mom's Diner", "Bubba's Barbeque", "Charlie's Chicken Shack" or the "Kettle Cafe".  I have found some wonderful food in such places.

Steak Houses are a typical USA specialty.  They all feature grilled beefsteak, but also offer a few other standard selections like chicken, and seafood.  If you visit the USA, I strongly recommend you try at least one meal in a good steak house.  I have traveled extensively throughout Europe and the UK.  I know it is possible to find a good steak dinner in those countries, but you must seek one out, and are likely to find it only in the more expensive restaurants.  The average quality of the steaks in most other countries seems to be inferior to what you are served in the USA.  Even the cheaper steak houses in the US serve some very tasty meals.  The higher priced steak houses serve some succulent steaks that are delicious beyond description.

Ruth's Chris Steak Houses, Morton's Steakhouses and the Capitol Grill are all high-end steakhouse chain restaurants.  They ate not cheap, but the quality of the steaks and the service is all top rate.  Landry's, Shulo's and a whole host of other local restaurants offer the same top quality at the same high-end prices.  If you can afford it, I suggest you try at least one meal featuring steak in one of these finer restaurants.  There is also a wide selection of more modestly priced steak houses that serve delicious steaks, but not quite as succulent as those in the higher priced steak houses.  Outback, The Lone Star Steakhouse and the Texas Steakhouse are popular steak house chains offering more modestly priced steaks.  The later two restaurants also feature cowboy-costumed staff that intermittently line dance for the entertainment of the diners.

We have some strange quirks in our restaurants throughout the USA.  On most menus, the term "entree" means the main course not the first course.  The first course is usually termed "appetizer" or "starter".  The side salad is typically not served along side of the main course.  It is served with the bread before the main course.  Coffee or tea are usually served with the meal, but can also be served after the meal in finer restaurants.  Most restaurants offer the "bottomless" cup of cofee or the "bottomless" glass of iced tea or softdrinks. This means that the waiters will continue to refill your coffee or softdrink throughout the meal, but will only charge for one drink.

The noonday meal or "lunch" is typically served between 11AM and 3PM at most restaurants and it is a smaller meal than the evening meal.  The evening meal or "dinner" is normally served between 4PM and 10PM and it is usually larger and more expensive than the lunch.  All restaurants tend to be very flexible, so you can order just an appetizer or two appetizers or just a desert if you prefer

Many restaurants offer vegetarian meals and low-calorie diet meals.  Dinner salads are quite popular.  These culinary concoctions are meant to replace the main course.  They usually consist of a large bowl of salad greens and/or vegetables topped with various meats cheeses or seafoods.  A steak salad has grilled strips of steak along with cheese and french fried potatoes atop the usual greens.  A chef's salad is topped with strips of ham, turkey and cheese.  A cobb salad has bacon, crumbled egg and blue cheese.  The grilled chicken salad, the salmon salad, the shrimp salad and the antepasta salad all have self-explanatory names.  Salad dressing is the sauce or salad creme served with nearly all salads in the USA.  Italian dressing is simply oil and vinegar with spices.  French dressing is a creamy, tomato-based sauce.  Thousand islands is more of a remoulade, and honey dijon is a piquant mustard based cream.  Dinner salads provide you with a lighter more healthful alternative to the usual fare, and they can be quite tasty.

Here are a few typically USA foods that you should sample on your visit to this country:  New England Clam Chowder, a white cream-based soup made from the meat of the sweet succulant shellfish found in our northern waters.   Maryland crab cakes made with the tasty flesh of the blue crab.  Barbeque pork spareribs and pulled pork barbeque served with differing regional sauces.  Sandwiches in countless varieties with infinite variations of ingredients.  Especially tasty are the submarine sandwiches or hoagies like the Philadelphia cheese steak hoagie.  Chili usually served as an appetizer, not in the finer restaurants, but in the neighvorhood cafes and diners especially in the Southwest.  Pies for dessert, especially those homemade confections found in local diners.  This includes fruit pies like apple, berry and cherry; cream pies like banana, coconut, lemon and chocolate; or regional varieties like pecan, key lime and shoo-fly.

During the summer months, fresh corn-on-the-cob is available in most areas.  You cannot find the good stuff in restaurants or cafes as it does not taste great unless it is very fresh and cooked immediately before eating. You can sometimes find it at festivals or at roadside stands.  If you have cooking facilities, you can buy some fresh corn directly from a farmer, boil it for a few minutes, smear it with some butter, sprinkle on some salt and eat it directly off of the cob.  What a great summertime delicacy! 

Remember, waiters and waitresses are usually paid very low salaries in the expectation that they will earn sufficient tip money to supplement those salaries.  If you get good service from the wait staff, you should add a generous tip to your reimbursement.  Good service means that your server pleasantly greets you, is attentive to your needs, makes helpful suggestions on choices, checks back frequently to insure you are kept satisfied and aplologizes for any delays.  Fifteen percent is normal, twenty percent is generous.  Anything less is either stingy or indicative that you were not satisfied with the service.  If you pay by credit card, there will be a space at the bottom of your bill where you can pencil in an additional tip amount.  It is also acceptable to leave tip money on the table as you depart. 

There are at least a million retired people living in Florida.  Most of them own small houses, mobile homes or condominiums in one of the many "Golden Age" communities scattered about the state. They typically spend their summers in the northern states visiting their children and grandchildren.  Every Spring in April or May, these retirees pack up their belongings, close up their Florida home for the Summer and head north to the homes of their children and grandchildren in New York, Cleveland or Detroit.

They spend the summer months playing with their grandchildren, taking them to the beaches and parks, buying them ice cream and spoiling them.  They help their children with gardening and housework.  They keep the grandchildren occupied while their children go off to work.

At the end of summer, in September or October, these "snowbirds" begin their seasonal migratory return to their Florida homes.  They may take a quick trip back up to the frozen northlands during December to further spoil their grandchildren with lavish Christmas gifts, but they otherwise spend the winter half of the year at their Florida homes, where they can relax around their swimming pools, play golf or tennis, or congregate with their Florida neighbors.

Thus, the permanent population of Florida decreases during the summer as the snowbirds head north, while the transient population of tourists floods into the state.  Summer can be hot, humid, wet and miserable in Florida, and is considered by the residents to be the least desirable season.  Nevertheless, most families with school-age children will travel to Florida during the June, July, August school holiday season. They will crowd the amusement parks, create long lines at the attractions and fill the beaches.

If you must go to Florida in the summer, here is what you can expect.  It can get hot. Very hot.  Not the dry desert heat of Arizona or Nevada, but a wet, humid heat of a steamy jungle.  The midday sun will bake your head and burn your skin while your sweat will roll down your face and soak your clothes.  Every afternoon, storms will roll in from the Gulf of Mexico, and amid flashes of lightning and clashes of thunder, will drench you with copious volumes of rain.  By evening, it will usually calm down and cool down to become downright pleasant, except for the mosquitos, bugs, lizards and other vermine that creep out of the jungle.

You can still enjoy Florida during the summer months, if you follow these few simple tips, that were gifted to me by a long-time snowbird in Southern Florida. 

First of all, awaken at sunrise and go to the beach or amusement attraction very early in the morning before the heat becomes oppressive.  Start no later than 8AM and stay out no later than noon.  Thus, you will get plenty of sun to create a golden tan without turning your skin lobster red.  You will beat the crowds to the amusement parks and avoid waiting in the blistering sun to get on the most popular rides.

At noon, go to a comfortable air-conditioned restaurant for a leisurely lunch.  Go shopping or visit some indoor attractions during the oppressive midday heat.  Go to a waterpark and spend the hot afternoon in the water, or go back to the hotel for a mid-afternoon siesta.  You will avoid the midday heat and most likely avoid the late afternoon thunderstorm.

After five or six in the evening, it will be safe to once again venture out into the sun.  Hopefully, the afternoon thunderstorm will have cooled the temperatures a bit. You can go back to the beach for a sunset swim or stroll,  You can go back to the amusement parks for the evening festivities without the oppressive heat.  You can even golf, boat or play tennis in the cooler evening.

I tried following these tips when in Florida during a hot August, and found that they improved the quality of my vacation time quite a lot.

They call it Emerald City, the green gem in the Northwestern corner of the USA.  Seattle is a wonderful place.  It sits on a series of rocky hills almost surrounded by the blue waters of two mountain-fed lakes and a broad Pacific Ocean Inlet.  From various vantage points throughout the city, you can catch glimpses of the snow capped peaks of the Cascade Mountains to the east or the Olympic Mountains to the West.  The southern horizon is dominated by the immense snow capped volcanic cone of Mount Rainier.. 

Baskets of multicolored flowers hang from the lamposts of the downtown streets.  The sidewalks are crowded with casually-dressed young people hustling along to their high-tech jobs at Microsoft, Adobe, or Amazon.  Bookshops, organic food stores and shops selling outdoor gear attest to the fact that this is a city of healthy, well-educated and environmentally conscious people.  Yet, all is not well in Emerald City.

On a visit to Seattle last week, I was suprised at the number of homeless people drifting about this northern paradise.  They were lounging about the park benches and accosting pedestrians on the downtown sidewalks with their pleas for a few extra coins.  Even in the suburban parks, where children play and mothers take their babies for a bit of fresh air, one could find homeless men and women napping on blankets or sleeping bags under the shrubs and trees.  Their dilapidated cars and vans filled to the brim with bags of clothing and miscellaneous household goods were parked around the periphery of every park.

There were two varieties of homeless in the city.  The young slackers with their trendy clothes and expensive backpacks were there by choice.  They willingly fled their homes in cities and towns across the USA to seek the environmental beauty and adventure of the Pacific Northwest.  These young drifters cheerily approached the business folks and the tourists asking for a bit of spare change, so they might continue to live and play in this desirable city.

More piiable were the elder and clearly destitute folks that were reluctantly begging for a few coins to pay for some food or for a place to sleep.  In the suburban parks, they seldom begged for money.  One grizzled old man, dressed in ragged jeans and shod during thie summer heat in plastic ski boots, approached us with a ragged teddy bear asking if our grandson would like it.  He hoped, no doubt, that we would exchange a few coins for it.  When we refused, he quietly walked on.  In his other hand, he held a pair of cowboy boots, and went searching for someone with a need for them.  On the park bench nearby, a Native American woman with several plastic bags filled with clothing stuffed handfuls of dry breakfast cereal in her mouth and slowly chewed and swallowed it.

If anyone should doubt that this economic downturn has hurt people, I suggest they go to Seattle and visit a few of these parks.  It is sad that there are people reduced to this state, especially in a country that is so well endowed and so wealthy.