Translated by SFT
As we rode along the St. Cloud, FL suburb, we saw a church, where a group of people were playing basketball. They waved at us. It would be a nice place for camping, I thought. So I went ahead and asked if it would be OK for us to camp at the empty spot near the church yard. A young man, A.D., told us there should be no problem at all, but we needed the final say from the priest. I introduced myself to A.D. telling him that we had been biking around the world. A.D. opened his mouth wide upon hearing that.
We felt disappointed when we were told that it’s not a good idea for us to camp near the church. Exhausted, we continued to ride on the seemingly endless road. We had not had a good rest for a few days and we were now in a remote area. Only wild animals and worry-free cattle wandered around. Even though we had only ridden 5km, we felt like we had pedaled for a whole day. Where could we find a place to settle for the night? I heard a deep sigh from Yi, so I sang, trying to cheer up her and myself.
All of a sudden, a squeaky noise broke my concentration on singing. A car stopped on the shoulder of the road. “You can camp in my backyard.
We can have dinner together and you can have a hot shower afterwards." – a voice from an angel, A.D. Yi was so touched; she had tears in her eyes.
We were in Melbourne, Australia one year ago, and now we were in Melbourne, FL, USA.
Same city name, different personal feelings- from eager to explore the world to now missing our hometown. They speak English in both places, but it surely does not sound the same. "Ga-day mate” in Australia = "Hello" in America.
We met Stephen when we were resting in a pavilion. Stephen knows very well what bikers need because he had a bike trip to Europe about 10 years ago. The expense was so high in the UK that he ran out of the money and did not have enough to get a plane ticket to fly back to America. Even though the sign said, ‘No street shows,’ he decided to play his violin in public. It was during the Christmas period, a lot of people came in and out of the airport. Thanks to people’s generosity, he collected enough coins and bills for a trip home. Seeing us reminds him of his dream for another bike journey. Stephen invited us to stay with him and his girlfriend from Hong Kong for the night. The following morning, he took us to the bicycle shop to get a couple of more inner tubes and some patches for the tires in preparation of our future trip. The bicycle shop owner gave us 3 inner tubes free of charge, claiming "America is a land of free!" (He must
have been a Democrat.)
Afterwards, Stephen took us to see one of his friends, David,
a retired university professor. David likes nature and travel, thus Stephen thought we would like to meet him. We enjoyed sharing traveling experiences with one another; three is not a crowd, but company. We camped in David’s backyard for 2 days and learned a few Turkish greeting expressions from David’s house guest from Turkey. We have words from him,’ Turkish people are friendly!’ So ‘NO WORRY’, all my friends and relatives.
Birds of a feather flock together. Surely, we visited another travel-loving lady, Peggy, who shared her experiences in Guatemala with us. Peggy also invited us to stay with her for the following night. After a few days’ stay in Melbourne,
we continued our trip toward Miami.
We came across Lauro and Jean when we were at fast food restaurant. Lauro lives in CA and came to FL for vacation. Jean is retired and lives in FL. Lauro and Jean in fact just met. Jean told us to get whatever we wanted to eat at McDonald's. It’s her treat. We had the best McDonald's meal! Lauro and Jean also gave us $35 to help with the expense for our journey.
Riding
in a small town, we ran into John, an ex radio talk show host. He asked
us where we came from. After we told him we were from Taiwan, he joked that we must have a very long snorkel, cycling from Taiwan to America. I went along with him, ‘it’s really hard to swim across the Pacific Ocean. We had to fight away the sharks.’ In order to celebrate our survival,
John and James treated us pizzas and let us stay for the night.
James
( look closely, does he remind you of any Hollywood celebrity?), an
owner of a motor maintenance shop, gave Yi a seashell necklace and Chuan
a Swiss knife so that we can defend
ourselves when swimming across the ocean.
Americans are indeed WONDERFUL people.
Your generosity, kindness and help will never be forgotten.
文章定位：
