Personally I fought the heat in the ten days from Moab, over the mountains of Colorado, through the flat plains of Kansas and along the windy roads of Missouri and Pennsylvania to the east coast. When temperatures soared to unbearable heights, the only thing that helped me standing the deadly heat was buying a gallon of water, filling the helmet with water and pour the rest all over me. This most primitive air-condition brought relieve for half an hour. Absolutely no food survived the black furnace-saddle-bags. My beloved m&m’s were so hot that I couldn’t hold them without burning my fingers. Yes it was hot, but you know what? I liked it. It’s one of these hundreds of little challenges you face when you travel and dealing with it makes you stronger. A new all-time heat record for Newark? Yes, and I was there.

Chart for July, 22nd 2011. 115° Fahrenheit = 46° Celsius

America remains a mystery to me. A major Chinese credit rating agency (Dagong) reduced the US rating to an A+ long time ago (November 2010, several resources, check internet). But still the US is one of the strongest economies in the world. So, what are they? Broken or not? In exactly these days this question is part of intense internal discussions between the two ruling parties with an open end. The answer will almost be that they are not broken, because the world couldn’t afford it. The US is for the world what some banks were two years ago in Europe: too big to fail. And maybe that is what releases these divided feelings. We hate it for what it is, because we depend on it and we love it for what it is, still in our heads, the land of opportunity where driving a big car on big roads just seems to be the right thing. Or let’s take Afghanistan. Do you know what it’s all about in Afghanistan? I don’t. And you don’t. Don’t tell me you know the truth unless you created this universe (and for an agnostic like me: can proof it). Maybe, most likely, it’s about power and influence, oil and gas and stuff. On the other hand - and I can say on the other hand because in the western world the societies reached a point where they stopped chopping off hands of delinquents – who else would have been willing to go to Afghanistan to liberate the civilization of a brutal dictatorship that violated everything we believe in? I stopped judging. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t have my believes. It’s just that I try to play on a level I think I can compete. For example I hate that charming town centers in Switzerland are more and more empty because people prefer to jump in their cars to drive to those growing, terrible malls in the industrial areas. That an educated middle-class wastes time and gasoline, that they spend fifty bucks for a tank to drive to Germany just because they get jiggy to safe twenty bucks on cheap meat there. These people can brag to do so and complain that it sucks that everything is made in China nowadays in the same sentence.

The US citizens I met struggle lots more. Even if they don’t know that their country was downgraded by Chinese credit rating agencies a while ago and that their currency lost tremendous value on the world markets, they can feel that the bright star that was high up in the sky not long time ago is fading. A star that in common memory stands for fighting for values, liberating what is today Europe from an atrocious dictatorship. (If you disagree with then text above but still continued to read, do you at least agree that US actions in WW2 were more or less ok for you?) A star that influenced my own childhood, a symbol of power in the cold war against communism. Maybe it was easier than. The roles were clearly defined. The good here, the evil there. With the collapse of the (most of the) communism, the world changed rapidly and the threats are diffuse now. A tiny, tiny, little group of extremists achieved that the western world is now scared to wet pants of everything with a beard and every nonconformity is declared to an act of terrorism. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” is what Benjamin Franklin said 1775. A climate of mutual mistrust between religious groups rose. Really? How is that possible? In the age of the internet and lawn mowers with a chair to sit on and a steering wheel. Religions drive international politics again?

Armed to their teeth some folks prepare themselves for this felt but unreal threat. Nate, a wonderful encounter in Missouri and already affected by some whisky shots repeatedly leaned over and whispered insistently in my ear that they are ready to fight in Hermann, the lovely little German settlement on the shore of the Missouri river. “I don’t have a gun, but I have swords”. Missouri? Really? Nobody is interested in Missouri! Wipe it from the planet, ram a meteorite into it, it would take weeks until someone would even realize. Then it would be in the news for two days until a bus in Bolivia drove over a cliff and killed some people. The time to get used to a world without Missouri is shockingly short. I know it’s hard to take, but trust me, I’m from Switzerland, I know what I’m talking about.

The biggest challenges in my opinion are not those overseas, are not fought on foreign soil. The decisive battle as I get it is to find a common understanding of how this country should work and stand for. It’s hard to let go, don’t tell that someone who is about to finish a one-year world trip. The world is colorful. And everyone has a stain, the human stain.

PS: Rise up against death penalty.

PPS: Rise up against war. If there is war, don’t blame the soldiers.

PPPS: Without any intention and despite millions of security checks, on my flight from Australia to the USA I found myself with my 48 ounce water bottle in the cabin and on a flight inside the US, even worse, with my Swiss Army Knife. Ha, I’m joking! Absurd, impossible. Maybe.