Quite a trial getting my bike registered.  The optimistic post I made with the picture on Saturday was frustrated as I had misread the info on Friday and it was only the driver licence section that was open; not vehicle registration.  So back today and it turns out that the insurance I bought, though totally valid as insurance throughout the US, is not acceptable for vehicle registration purposes in the state of Maryland.  So almost an entire day spent at Motor Vehicle Administration: 2.5 hours this morning only to be told insurance was no good; 2 hours sorting new insurance; 1.5 hours back at MVA.  But finally I have a plate, although at an incredible $430 fee.

Quite cross with the Company who sold me the first insurance as I cannot believe they could not have listed those states where their policies were not valid for registration.  So have sent a message back to the UK bikers site who are linked with them, suggesting they check out the new insurance company who are not only valid for reg in all states, but also cheaper.   And of course I now have to try and get my money (or at least some of it) back from company number one.

After a couple of recommendations I have decided to go to New Orleans after all.  So the schedule begins to take shape.  Off to the Monongahela Mountains of West Virginia on Thursday, somewhere on the road to Nashville over the weekend, Nashville next Monday and Tuesday, a couple of days down to New Orleans and  then a couple of days there.  After that probably 2/3/4 days lazy drive back to Washington.  But things may change.  You will find out here first.

Standing in line at passport control on Thursday night I realised I forgot to bring a whistle to wile away time and keep my head soothed with a little music making.  So on Saturday we went off in search of music shops.  Stu wanted to get a guitar for his younger child anyway and I had to get a new top E string for their other guitar as I broke the current one.  Bought a complete turkey.  When we got it back I found it was un-tuneable.  For those of you with a musical bent - you could tune it to the harmonics but then the frets were out, tune it to the frets and it played out of tune.  So the frets were basically in the wrong place.  Still a good job I was around to be able to say definitively: this turkey won't fly; and we went back to get a decent one. The shop staff did not seem at all surprised!

Requests for whistles in a couple of shops were met with something of a blank stare but eventually I was pointed in the direction of 'The House of Musical Tradition', a charming shop with exactly the sort of mix of instruments I was looking for.  Found a box of really nice end blown 6 hole flutes at $4 each so bought one each for the kids as well as one for myself. They did normally have Shaw 'D' whistles but were out of them; which was probably a good thing.  Dave Shaw is a County Durham man and it was one of his whistles, which are very good, that I left behind.  At around £12 to £15 they are not the cheapest, but they are a nice tone.  However in this shop they were $90 each so, as I say, a good job they were out of them so I wasn't tempted.

Had such a nice time there.  Played a couple of tunes on one of those cheap flutes, which are very similar to one of my own, and the shop staff seemed genuinely amazed at the sound I got out of it.  Bit surprising but very flattering.  So they gave me the run of the shop and I ended up having a fantastic hour or so playing assorted world music instruments and 30 minutes with one of the staff there playing a couple of $5,500 (thats about £3,500) handmade craftsman guitars they had.  Absolutely wonderful!  I was walking on air.

Sunday of course was Osama Bin Laden Memorial Day here.  For anyone who hasn't read Noam Chomsky's article  http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/20119775453842191.html  its worth a look.  Typical Chomsky it tries to cover three, if not four, really interesting, vital and related aspects in one article and is, as a result, a tad chaotic.  He could use a good editor.  Perhaps I should get my host Jan to help him, that's what she does for a living.  She tells me his writing is hardly known or recognised in the US which I suggest, and she does not demur, is perhaps good old fashioned political censorship; living on here in the land of the free.  Censorship can after all happen by simply ignoring and not printing.  There is, inevitably, a Brecht poem about life in E. Germany that criticises such practices there.  But I'm not going to quote it as I haven't got the dear boy's work to hand.

One of Noam's themes is that O.B.Laden won.  He set out to seduce the US into ruinously expensive wars they couldn't win and thus bankrupt themselves.  Which seems about right for what then happened.  The insane dichotomy of the super rich, who will benefit from whatever happens, and the poverty of the many.  Which is only set to get worse. But blow me down I cannot get a reaction from putting this theory about. Everyone I talk to nods sagely and says, yes.  I thought this might be just a bit controversial but no-one rises to the bait.  My hosts of course I would not expect to as they're tuned in to this attitude but even people I fall into conversation with seem to accept it.  I took a pedicab on Sunday in Washington and the driver/rider just  said that the problem was George Bush II was the worst President the country had ever had.  Maybe Americans are just too polite to visitors?  There are many reflections on this country and its people I hope I have time to make.  It is at a time like this that I really wish my typing speed was just a little faster.

Anyhow now I am properly on the road. I must remember to take my camera out with me now I have cracked posting pictures.