Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads...

Crumbs - I've been away from this place so long Blogger has completely changed its interface since I was last here. Apologies if this turns out upside down, or bright pink, or accidentally in Comic Sans or something... [EDIT: I just previewed this post and it genuinely had turned my template into Comic Sans. I nearly had a conniption]

Anyway, the main reason why I've not been boring you with my exploits recently is that I have been on a Great Big Adventure. Having got married last year, the Significant Otter and I decided that for our Honeymoon we would take a real trip of a lifetime and do a road trip around Mid-West America, seeing places we've never seen, seeking out new life and new civilisations, boldly going...no, hang on, that's Star Trek. Well, you get the picture.

Aw, the route looks a bit like a heart. I did not notice this, but this is because I have no romance in my soul.

We knew we wanted to start in San Francisco then visit Portland, Oregon (mostly for the beer), before striking out East towards South Dakota so that we could go and be sweary in Deadwood before heading down to Colorado and flying back from there to Los Angeles at the very end. We booked nothing but the car hire, our flights there and back, and the first night's accommodation. Oh, and a cocktail bar for the first evening in San Francisco. Because thirst is a dangerous thing.

What followed was three of the most amazing, fullest, busiest, most exhausting but wonderful weeks of my life. My intention to document all this in the form of a mobile blog as we went along failed almost immediately, mostly because a) I couldn't type in the car because I'd be sick and b) I'm very lazy. Instead, every night at whatever dodgy motel, diner or saloon we found ourselves in I would fish out of my bag some stolen hotel paper and a stolen hotel pen and we would write a bullet-point retrospective of the highlights of our day. I am going to use these beer-stained, garbled, badly spelled notes as the basis of my attempt to record our Great Big Adventure for posterity. 

Bear in mind we did go through eight different states, three different timezones, and drank our bodyweights in strangely-named American micro-brewed beers with pictures of wildlife on the bottle, so I'm not going to try and recount everything in one go. These posts may be sporadic, but I promise I will get there in the end!

A few statistics to start us off:

States we travelled  through: California, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado.

Miles driven: 3349

Number of different hotel/motel rooms stayed in: 17. I think. Might have to come back to that one.

Amount of toiletries stolen: lots.

Local wildlife accidentally killed: almost one duck.

Horrible colds caught within hours of landing: 1

Acceptable cups of tea: One. On the last day.

I will be back with an account of our first week, which took us from San Francisco to Portland. But for now, here's a picture of me pointing at a buffalo. You're welcome.