The following is a Counterpoint column:

By Mark Gottsegen

The AP story about Calvin Woodward’s bicycle trip across the U.S. ("Roads less traveled: Biking across U.S.," News & Record, Dec. 30) prompts me to remind you that your archives probably contain a better story about Weston Hatfield’s clockwise circumnavigation of the United States, by bicycle, in 1988-89. I’m sure he had dozens of better stories of that trip, too.

I know about Weston’s trip because I was on my own counterclockwise circumnavigation of the country then, albeit in my 1957 IH Metro van with my dog and a bunch of paints. You published a story on my trip in 1990, when I had an exhibit of paintings from the trip at the Weatherspoon Art Museum.

In fact, Weston and I were then friends, and I surprised him by finding out where he was going to be in the summer of 1988 (Cleveland, of all places) and showing up on the doorstep of his lodgings. He had just come from visiting with my future wife and her family in Michigan, and, as I recall, we went out to dinner in some cool neighborhood.

With three kids and a big-time job, Weston’s doing a different kind of traveling these days. But I still have my Metro and go various places in it, to paint and to collect more stories about people and places.

Thanks for the memories.

The writer lives in Climax.