Husky Galore

The Aristocats meets Back to the Future. Thomas O'Malley was the kittens' father all along, but unless they can use the power of jazz to get their future parents together, Berlioz, Toulouse and Marie will cease to exist!

...no?

I got up early to say goodbye to Lori, who had to go to work. Rick and I went for a walk by the nearby lake, which we'd been meaning to do all week, then drove in to Mount Airy for a final taste of America at Chipotle. Afterwards, having bought nothing so far but postcards and stamps, I spent $30 in Safeway on Pop Tarts, goldfish crackers and other delights.

It rained for the first time all week as Rick drove me and my suitcase towards Washington. Our plan was to spend a couple of hours at the National Air and Space Museum near the airport.

This is the Smithsonian Institute's aviation overflow, a vast, beautiful gallery with light aircraft suspended from the ceiling, larger exhibits on the floor, and glass cases containing everything from flightsuits worn on missions over Iraq to a souvenir lamp shaped like Charles Lindbergh's cat Patsy.

I loved seeing the SR-71 Blackbird and the cropduster biplanes, which aren't the sort of thing you get in UK air museums, and just walking around the exhibits in the company of someone with similar levels of knowledge and interest to mine. We were thrown out very promptly at closing time, which meant I spent less time browsing the gift shop than I would have liked, but I still managed to bag a T-shirt and a couple of postcards.

Then it was time for me to be dropped off at the terminal, say goodbye, and vanish into the security system. I try not to buy things at airports, because it's overpriced tat one is driven to by boredom, but I couldn't resist some presents for my loved ones from a shop called 'America!' (Presumably they weren't allowed to add 'F*ck Yeah!'.) I sat at a Starbucks and wrote my air museum postcards, which a nice British Airways man promised to post for me. award's, at least, arrived.

Having spent the outward journey in the very middle of the 2-3-2 seat configuration, I'd checked in online for the return leg and secured a window seat by the emergency exit. I loved seeing the Canadian coast all lit up, then, hours later, Ireland and Wales all green in the morning sun (I don't sleep much on planes).

It was nice to be home, but I was already missing the other life of dogs and cats and bikes I'd been welcomed into for a week. Throughout the holiday I kept catching myself thinking of things I'd like to do 'next time', and I do hope there will be one.

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"You guys have to come see this," Lori called from the living-room as I was eating breakfast. It was ten turkey vultures sitting in a line on the back fence, sunning themselves companionably like little old men.

Lori needed to pick something up from a friend's house out in the country, so we had a drive, stopping for lunch at a diner. On the way back we passed through a town called Granite, which we were hoping would be like Bedrock in The Flintstones, and saw a farmer in denim dungarees buying his kids a treat at a roadside snowball stand.

In the afternoon, while Lori went to the farm and Rick had a nap, I got to take the scooter out by myself.

Rick attached the sat-nav, showed me how to make it take me home, and assured me that there was no way I could end up on an interstate, then I was off. I didn't go very far, and recognised most of the roads I was on, but it was a heady, scary experience to be alone in a foreign country. I regret not taking more photos (by the time I spotted the opportunities I was already whizzing past them) and not stopping at one of the many yard sales to sift through goodies from Maryland attics, but I had a lovely time exploring the back roads and admiring the April blossom.

Later we drove to Frederick, Maryland's second-largest city (roughly the size of Bournemouth), a pretty town just right for strolling, shopping and eating in the spring sunshine. We met friends of Rick and Lori's for a meal, and filled time beforehand browsing a vast antique shop full of treasures. I learned the verb 'to antique', as in 'we went antiquing', and unearthed an illustration of sled dogs from the early 20th century, which I have yet to frame.

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After a busy morning of website work, Rick took me into Mount Airy for one of the quintessential Maryland eating experiences: barbeque. We hit up CarterQue in the company of Rick's friend Ben, an expert on US and world cuisine. (Ben grew up in Georgia, which has the highest ratio of hogs per capita in the United States, "and there's your piggy fun factoid for the day". I liked Ben.)

In the afternoon we went out on the bikes again, which I'd been dying to do all week. We took a mixture of country roads and scary highways, passing through four counties: Frederick, Carroll, Montgomery and Howard. (Sadly not the Carroll County of Ode to Billie Joe, where the eponymous BJ and the narrator's brother put a frog down her back at the picture show; that would be the Mississippi one.) Our destination was Gaithersburg and Battley's Motorcycles, a BMW and Harley-Davidson dealer - an unusual combination with, you would think, little crossover.

We were both ravenous again by dinner, even though we had spent much of the intervening time watching the guy on Bizarre Foods catch sea urchins from a boat off Sardinia and eat them raw.

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Lori took the day off work and the two of us went to Luray Caverns, about two hours' drive away. We made a proper road trip of it, taking it easy and stopping at a Sheetz for refreshments. We crossed the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers and passed motels which looked unchanged since the 1960s. I saw a church sign that read MAY DROPLETS OF GOD'S MERCY AND LOVE SHOWER YOUR SPIRITUAL GARDEN, which I rather liked, and another that read MOTHER MARY WAS PRO-LIFE - THANK GOD, which I didn't. We were both delighted to spot a genuine tacky roadside attraction, the 'educational prehistoric forest' of Dinosaur Land, and we stopped to photograph the fibreglass monsters.

Distracted by dinos, we took a wrong turning which led us past flowering orchards and drystone walls. We reached the caverns in time to book on the next tour, and soon we were following our guide down into the depths.

The caves were were discovered in 1878 and became a major tourist attraction soon afterwards. It must have been scary stuff in the days when they were lit by candles and visitors exited via a narrow passageway rather than the gift shop. These days, the stalactites and stalagmites are lit by unwavering beams and remain beautiful, creepy and impressive. There are vast floor-to-ceiling columns and strange little lumps; there are random natural shapes which the human eye and brain transform into ghosts and fried eggs. I loved the shallow pool of water so clear and still that the reflection of the stalactites above looked like underwater stalagmites mirroring the ceiling, and a formation called the Fishmarket because the hanging rocks look like fish drying above a stall. The undeniable highlight, however, was the Stalac-Pipe Organ: stalactites rigged and wired to produce a note when struck, so you get an eerie surround-sound performance of a jolly, patriotic tune at the press of a button.

As well as the main attraction, there was a small motor museum and a vast gift shop containing precisely nothing I wanted (though I was tempted by a cuddly possum). We took a moment to admire the view before hitting the road again.

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Discussing British versus North American wildlife with Lori the day before, I'd mentioned that I'd really like to see a raccoon. Lori immediately offered to trap me one up at the barn, where egg-stealers are relocated to a happier hunting ground behind the grocery store. But there was no need, because we observed a medium-sized bandit from the living-room window, prancing happily along the back fence in broad daylight.

We had lunch at a proper American diner, Trout's Towne Restaurant, and I realised that British diners can only ever be pale imitations of the genuine, star-spangled, unpretentious original, with its friendly waitresses and military-themed menu.

Afterwards, Lori took me to her farm to meet the horses, pony and donkey (some hers, some tenants), the Naked Neck chickens, and Peewee, possibly the world's fattest and friendliest feral cat. A lovely vet came to file the horses' teeth (or 'float' them, as it is in the US), mock the Naked Necks ("What a freakazoid! It's like a baby dinosaur!"), and show off his knowledge of pre-decimal British currency.

My day of rural Americana was made complete when I saw a Mennonite at the petrol station.

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Rick and I spent the morning looking at the website work I'd been invited over to look at. Much to my relief, it was easily within my remit: converting existing pages to a new template, very much what I do in my day job. Now I'm home, it's just a question of finding time to do it...

Afterwards we knocked off and, with Lori, went on a jaunt to a nearby town for Vietnamese food and some shopping at Lotte, a vast international supermarket specialising in oriental foodstuffs. I love poking around foreign food stores so I was delighted my hosts did too - though, to be honest, I would have found just as much awe and wonder in a Wal-Mart or Target.

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I woke to a bright, sunny morning. Looking out of the bathroom window, I saw a bird feeder covered in birds I didn't recognise. Soon I was eating breakfast and learning to identify cardinals, bluejays, chickadees and American goldfinches (a bright Dayglo yellow, unlike the European version). The morning was spent running supermarket and Post Office errands, which was, of course, all novel and delightful to me.

Then we went for a ride.

Rick's stable includes a BMW maxi-scooter of the kind I test-rode last year, and he was also able to lend me a helmet in my size (I'd brought my own jacket, boots, gloves and Kevlar-lined jeans). We set ourselves up with intercoms and I was ready for my first experience of the US on two wheels.

Although I've ridden on the right in continental Europe, I wasn't used to the massive intersections and confusing traffic lights of American roads, and I was glad to have a guide when we came across those. For the most part, though, we were on local back roads and seldom saw another vehicle. The curves were gentle and the passing countryside endlessly fascinating. Black buzzards perched in the trees or circled above. We slowed to let half a dozen whitetail deer cross the road ahead of us. Later, Rick drew my attention to the rear end of a woodchuck vanishing into the verge. We also saw a dead possum, which was interesting although I'd rather have seen a live one.

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My journey to Heathrow (by overground to Clapham Junction, train to Feltham and bus to Terminal 5) went so well that I was too early to check in my suitcase and had to sit guarding it for 45 minutes. I discovered that I'd been assigned a seat right in the middle of the 767's 2-3-2 configuration, boarded the plane, and spent seven hours reading my Kindle, watching a selection of sitcoms and kiddie movies courtesy of the inflight entertainment system, and periodically checking the Your Journey section to track our progress west.

Gosh, arriving in the US is a pain, isn't it? I spent three-quarters of an hour in a queue, worriedly awaiting my turn to reveal why I was visiting, what I did for a living, and how much cash I'd brought with me. Bright spots were the very handsome sniffer dogs on patrol (German Shepherd, black Labrador, and beagle), and the security lady who saw my Vespa bag and told me her brother had had one of those in the late '60s.

By the time I emerged, clutching my suitcase, I was a little anxious about locating someone I'd met in person once, in a huge airport. Rick, however, had been following the live flight information and was waiting and waving. Soon I was ensconced in his pickup truck and heading down the darkened interstate, thrilled by the American-ness of the road signs, the huge, shiny lorries, and the exits for places called Buckeystown and [Don't Go Back To] Rockville.

An hour later I was welcomed by Rick's wife Lori, Sugar the whippet and Alf the hairless Sphynx cat ("And when Mr Bigglesworth gets upset, PEOPLE DIE!"). I was fed, I sent a couple of emails reporting my safe arrival, and I went to bed at what would have been 4:30 in the morning at home, but was a perfectly reasonable half past eleven in Maryland.

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In the runup to my holiday I had a visit from Howard, who was collecting a bike he'd bought from local friends of ours. We spent Friday doing London Things: we went on the London Eye, had lunch at Skylon, whose retro branding has long tempted me, and enjoyed a quick look around Tate Modern before walking across the Millennium Bridge. We ended up at the British Museum, where I'd booked tickets for a screening of the Up Pompeii movie, and managed to fit in a free mini-lecture on the Rosetta Stone too.

On Saturday we picked up the new bike. Testing, obviously, ensued. Our lunchtime destination was the Duck Inn at Pett Bottom - immortalised by Ian Fleming as the home of James Bond's aunt, who raised him after his parents died. Today the pub is also the home of a large huskyish dog who promptly installed himself under our table. The bacon baguettes may have had something to do with it. Afterwards we took twisty single track country roads to the Battle of Britain memorial at Capel-le-Ferne before heading home up the A20.

It was a lovely way to spend a couple of days before leaving the country for a week. On Sunday morning Howard rode his new bike to the station while I walked down with my suitcase, so he could wave me goodbye.

And then I was off!