Australian Road Rider — August 2017

end I don’t because it would be disrespectful.

Donald Trump shows up, though.

My last day on Route 50 is an easy 300km

cruise around Washington and across the

Chesapeake Bay bridge into Maryland. It’s a

fl at run southeast to the coast, where Route 50

terminates at Ocean City.

The name sounds rather grand, but Ocean

City is a charmingly shabby joint, sort of like

the Gold Coast in the 1970s before all the high

rises took over and it became a monument to

bad taste. It’s chocka with families enjoying

the holiday weekend. I pull up at my hotel and

right there is the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s taken me 10 straight days and 5680km to

ride across America on its last remaining two-

lane transcontinental highway. I need a day off.

I take a stroll along the beachfront boardwalk,

drink some beer and hook into a pile of fried

shrimp at Belly Busters Crab Shack. It’s the

best food I’ve had all trip.

I’ve still got a few days up my sleeve before

I have to return the bike so I decide to ride up

to New York City, 400km north, via America’s

most amazing freeway, the New Jersey

Turnpike, which starts about 100km south

of the city. I can’t quite work out how many

lanes it has but I think it’s about 20 in total,

so 10 lanes each way, with the truck lanes on

the outside, completely separated from cars.

There’s very li le traffi c today and I’m adri in

an ocean of concrete. It must be insane when

it’s busy.

Americans aren’t as disciplined on their

freeways as Europeans. They’re a lot more

observant and considerate than Australian

drivers, though. They will overtake a slower

vehicle on either side, depending upon which

lane is clear, and use of the indicator is optional.

There’s no inside “fast lane” as such, though

that’s where the low-fl yers hang out. There are

plenty of highway patrol cops on the Interstates,

“I stop for gas at a lonely roadhouse in the forest. They sell fuel, coffee,

Glock, Luger and Beretta pistols, rifles, semi-automatics and machine guns”

r Memorial Day fl ags seem entirely appropriate alongside American iron.

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