A pock-marked, uninterested head looks chagrined at me from under his ticket office. A kind of Mexican bandito, with a trimmed moustache that would make the dog of the neighbours run... I give him my papers and he leafs through them a little. Every now and than he asks me something and I'm allready starting to lose hope, but with a smile he stamps them all, wishes me a good journey and before I know it, the motor is cleared, all in 5 minutes time ! This goes to show that prejudices have no place.
At the cargo department of the KLM I work my butt off to put the Yamaha together before closing time. I chock all the stuff in the cases, ofcourse this way it never fitts, but I want to get out of this stinking city as soon as possible. For me, New York is a very high pile of people, cars and concrete, ant it's charmes don't interest me at all !


On the way to Oshkosh, with immense Kenworth's, Freightliners and Macks that rumble over the roads with 110 km ph upon my heels, I drive 700 km to the Niagara Falls. Those flow between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario at the Canadian border. It is quite a commercial business but fortunately that doesn't change the scenery. Every second 2500 cubic litres of water stream over the edge, that is about 5 swimming pools of 10x25 metres. Still, this is just a triffle because a lot of water is drawed off to generate electricity. These lakes, actually inland seas, belong to a group of 5. This group contains more than 20% of the fresh water we have on the entire globe.

While I'm looking for a camping place in a national park, I'm stung in my neck twice by a wasp. Half stopping and hitting I come to a standstill at the side of the road and before the moped is on it's jiffy-stand I tumble upside down with the whole lot. The wasp stings me again before I send him off to meet his maker.
It's getting dark and I'm nicely stepping on the gas but ofcourse that is not allowed and with flashing lights and sirenes I'm being brought to a standstill by an original Trooper. He is angry, wants to see papers and gets them, all in Dutch. He needs to make a call, while I make myself a sandwich. I'm not worried, he can't do anything anyway. "You bloody alien next time you're gonna get prosecuted". What ever you say my old son....

Oshkosh is the native town and headquarter of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Every year more than 12000 airplanes ( a lot of them are home-made) come here for the annual flightshow. It is really American style and incredibly big. I put my tent up on the biggest camping place I have ever seen. It has 65 streets and my tent is in the 21st. Thousands of campers, a lot of them bigger than the average family house, coming from everywhere in America, having travelled many kilometers to get here, arrive during the day. The rest of the people come by (their own) plane and sleep under the wing.
During the 7 day event you can get to know everything about flying and planes. There are many workshops, possibilities to fly, shows, planes, you name it, they got it.
It is all very well organized but very American: hats of for the national anthem everyday, 30 seconds silences and the Last Post on trumpet. The Americans too get nationalism sucked in with their mothers milk. But I'm enjoying myself a lot because there is so much to see, in Holland this would be impossible !
In the meantime I work on the bike one morning to adjust the rearsuspension (located impossibly).

In the early morning of the 31st I leave for a 1500 km long ride to Sturgis, South Dakota where a bizar motormeeting of especially Harley riders will take place. I just hope that I am welcome with my Japanese moped...