It's Really Happening this Summer!! Starting June 3rd, 2015 in Plymouth, MA

Dear family and friends,

This summer, I will be embarking on a cross-country cycling trip with a group of cyclists that includes my good friends and Chinese explorers Jin Feibao and Fei Xuan. We will be starting in Plymouth, Massachusetts on or around June 3^rd and be finishing in Los Angeles in early August. The main goals of the trip are to explore America's rich diversity and history while encouraging cross cultural exchanges between China and the US. While getting to know as many locals as possible, we hope to visit many cultural, historical and scenic sites along the way.

Right now I am reaching out to all of you, my friends and family, to see if you may know of anyone who could put us in touch with any schools (especially universities) or municipal governments of which we could meet with along the way. We have the support of the Kunming City government, which would like us to deliver letters of friendship to mayors of cities across the US. We would also like to visit several universities around the US to possibly set up exchange opportunities with universities in Yunnan. Please look at our route below to see if you know of anyone near our route that might be able to help us.

Another part of our trip will be to experience America's incredible diversity and plan to meet up with Amish, Native American, Chinese American, and African American communities along the way, if you have any contacts that could help us in making these connections or others that would also be greatly appreciated.

Our route will roughly follow the Yellowstone Trail (including the Erie Canal) for the first 1200 miles of our adventure from Plymouth to Chicago and then follow the Historic Route 66 from Chicago all the way to LA. Every town listed below is a place we are planning to stay the night while bolded cities are planned rest days. If we can plan some university or municipal meetings, we will plan a rest day in that place to allow time to see the sites and meet with those willing to accept us. Of course this is just a rough sketch of the itinerary as we will play things by ear, stopping at interesting places or visiting friends and hosts along the way. Nothing is set in stone yet, so if you have any recommendations please feel free to pass them along.

Route (with approximate dates):

Massachusetts (June 3^rd - 7^th): Plymouth – Boston – Sturbridge – Northampton – Pittsfield.

New York (June 7^th - 15^th): New Lebanon – Schenectady/Albany – Little Falls – Syracuse – Canadaigua – Buffalo – Niagara

Pennsylvania: Erie

Ohio (June 15^th -18^th): Cleveland – Sandusky – Toledo

Indiana (June 18^th - 22^nd): Fort Wayne – Goshen – Valparaiso

Illinois (June 21^st – 27^th): Chicago – Joliet – Pontiac – Springfield

Missouri (June 26^th – July 2^nd): St. Louis – Sullivan – Waynesville – Springfield – Joplin

Oklahoma (July 1^st – 10^th): Tulsa, Oklahoma City

Texas (July 11^th - 17^th): Amarillo

New Mexico (July 14^th - 26^th): Santa Rosa – Santa Fe – Albuquerque – Paraje – Grants – Gallup

Arizona (July 23^rd – August 3^rd): Chambers – Holbrook – Flagstaff – Seligman – Peach Springs – Oatman

California (July 30^th – August 8^th) : Barstow – San Bernardino – Santa Monica/LA

Here is a rough map on Google of our proposed itinerary.

If you have any suggestions for us, or know of anyone who would like to host us, please contact me. I have attached a very rough draft of our itinerary list form. As with our last trip across SE Asia in 2010, it will be highly publicized in China and we welcome any publicity in the US as well.

Please feel free to forward this on to anyone who you might know that would be able to help. Stay tuned to my blog for updates

Thank you very much and hope to see you on the road!