Sally Hall

Finally read this after years thanks to my local librarians. Not as bad as the worst reviews say, but it's pretty lightweight. Sally tries to flesh out a book from notes she's jotted in a journal over 4 summers. Most of the writing is complaints about how their unpreparedness or forgetfulness made for a bad day. Sure wish Dave would have contributed something, so we could have read his take on the trip. Also wish Sally would have gone more in-depth on the histories of some of the locales, or the lives of the people they met, or even the impact this trip had on their personal lives. But it is a fast read.… (more)

I've wondered why there would be the lowest rating available for a book someone actually finished reading. If it's that bad, why would you have read it? I've stopped reading many a book, but this is the first I finished one that was this bad. Don't get me wrong. This book, about a very well off middle-aged married couple from Hawaii trying to ride their bikes from Seattle to Bar Harbor, Maine, in four segments over four different summers, is certainly readable to anyone having no intention of ever doing the same thing. I mean how would you know how many really dumb things two professional people can do day in and day out while cycling, if you don't cycle and haven't been where they've been. The author has been a college professor, and she shows great interest and passion for certain things (bird watching), but using both sides of her brain and much of the one side she does use, is not part of who she is. Admittedly, I may have gotten off on the wrong foot with her "reporting" since they start out in my home city. But how many errors am I supposed to accept before I get to discount what she's writing? For example, she uses the very same misspelling for two differently named towns. Despite errors in reporting, in cycling, in touring, I thought, at the very least, when they got to areas that I knew less well and after they had more experience under their belts, that the following segments would be better, or less obvious in their problems. They don't; they actually get worse. On writing style, the author has this strange habit of using "unsuitable" adjectives and adverbs. I ask you, how does silence "echo"? There are succulent plants, but when is grass succulent if you're just looking at it? And can you actually enjoy silence (no, not quiet) if you hear water flowing and birds chirping? And temperatures. In the 80s was variously described as hot, beautiful, cool, and brilliant. Anything less than totally flat roads were hilly. Slight inclines were very hilly. Inclines my wife, being even older than the author, cycles up nearly every day would probably have required sherpas from the Himalayas. Forgetfulness. Panniers on the train, requiring a day's delay to get it back. Earrings. Two different pairs. Sunglasses. A handlebar bag: something that sits right under your nose when you start riding off. Preparation. Would you start off a cross continent bike ride with a bicycle tire that is so worn and frayed that it literally falls apart an hour after starting out...with no spare? This after they had already cycled over 700 miles for the first segment. Would you take along a tent so old and worn that "gently slapping" at a mosquito punched a hole in it big enough to require a t-shirt to plug it up? If you live in a home worth well over a million dollars, what stops you from getting decent equipment? Again, if you don't intend to do what the author and husband did, read away. Enjoy. Otherwise, don't do what they did, and definitely don't do it with them.… (more)