In November 1989, I joined an educational non-profit organization as the official photographer.  Streetside Stories had been set up by two brothers, Seth and James Levy as a means to promote reading and writing among young people by sharing stories.  They were bicycling across the States and needed someone to go along with them to drive the support vehicle and take pictures.  I was the second person in the role.  The first guy was with them from Maine to Birmingham, Alabama, which is where I took over.  They would cycle 3 or 4 days a week and then we would stop in a town or city and they would do a workshop with junior high school students. 

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We took a break over the December holidays when schools were closed, treating ourselves to a quick trip down to New Orleans (see the gallery One Night in NOLA) and got back together in February.  We were four now that Mira Sorvino had joined us, and we had a new car thanks to her mother, who donated her old station wagon to the cause.

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We had almost no money.  We received no salaries, but they paid for my film and processing and whatever room and board expenses we incurred, which were never much because in addition to taking pictures, part of my job was to scout ahead on the road each night and find a place to sleep, preferably for free.  I must be a pretty smooth talker because from Birmingham to Albuquerque, via Del Rio, Texas, we never once had to pay for a hotel.  We slept on a lot of floors, but we always had a roof over our heads.

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At the end of March, in Albuquerque, we ran out of money.  Someone suggested we get jobs waiting tables and pool the money to finish the trip, but it seemed to me that paying to sleep on floors was a losing proposition, so Mira and I packed our bags and headed home, her by plane and me by train: Albuquerque to Chicago (see the gallery 1990 for a few shots from the Windy City) and then on to New York.

A little more than a month after leaving Albuquerque, Mira and I would be bound for Moscow (see the project Moscow).