Bummer! More soul-searching. Then, through an Inclusive Leadership Adventure [see http://www.island.net/~bridges/] in which we explored the Earth Charter, I met a man who went from the North Pole to the South Pole on strictly people power [see http://www.antarctica.org/old/UK/Expe/Expes_Antarctiques/2000_2001/P2P_2000/dia/team1_UK.htm for members of the 2000 Pole to Pole Team]. This really inspired me, so I decided I could still go and travel, I'd just do it on my bike!

Three years and one failed attempt later, I am almost in Mexico. Only about 100 miles away actually! I've put over 3,000 miles on my bike and survived for over 6 months off of only $2,000 (USD). I've seen and met more people than I can remember, and inspired and taught a few of them too.

We've made a slide show and presented it to a few schools along the way. We also put together a community celebration of the bicycle in Ojai, California and we are constantly living and promoting the Earth Charter. Right now, we are exploring the Joshua Tree National monument and wilderness rather than the Los Angeles national disgrace and smogginess.

I hope to learn from this trip about other ways to live, about sustainable, harmonious communities that I believe still exist outside the industrialized, individualized, motorized world. I hope to learn about poverty and different situations, attitudes and solutions that are taking place. I hope to take the values and lessons that I learn and put them into practice via a new form of government which will encourage and enable and teach and support people to find inner peace, to live sustainably and happily in a community where they can feel safe.

I am also hoping to gain the personal strength, self-discipline, strong determination and health I will need to enact my life goals. I think that cities need the most help, and would like to bring nature and eco-systems back to the city. I don't believe we are separate from our environment, so we need to acknowledge that in our building and city designs, so as not to block out and pave over nature.

After reaching Mexico, we are planning to go to Africa to cycle and film a documentary and visit schools and relief organizations. Then we plan to go back to Canada to make and present the documentary to Canadian schools in another bike tour. This tour is called Two Wheels One World, and it is mainly focused on the AIDS crisis [see http://2wheels1world.tripod.com/whoarewe.html].