Travel Plans

Instead of doing the sensible thing of flying straight to California I'm visiting a really good friend of mine, Juliana, in Cincinnati, OH first. This will be great fun, she'll help me acclimatise to the US (by showing me a gun shop!), I might get to see a bit of America and I can't wait. The only downside is that I have an environmental issue with flying (thanks mum and dad) and I will always avoid flying wherever possible, so instead of flying across the continent I have decided to go by Greyhound bus instead. I'm trying desperately to remind myself of the good points of this, the reasons that I am doing this - the environment, its cheaper, it will give me a sense of the scale of the country (which mum feels I seriously lack), I'll take in some amazing landscapes that I've never seen before, and Greyhounds are iconic, etc.

All was fine, I had successfully deluded myself that the two days and a half days journey would be fine and then, this evening, I made the mistake of looking at the details of my planned trip. It takes in a grand total of 8 states and goes through Las Vegas, Indianopolis, Kansas City, Denver, LA (not in that order) and many other little towns (there is actually somewhere called Junction City, imagine the English building a town around the Spaghetti Junction - oh, wait we did, it's called Birmingham) as well as mountains and desert. Somehow this hadn't really managed to scare me until I saw the total mileage of my journey: 2504 MILES I don't think I have ever travelled that far in my life, and that doesn't even count crossing the Atlantic. Suddenly I have a fairly accurate picture of just how far I will be from my family and friends and just how big the US really is, my mind can't quite comprehend this. I must be mad absolutely mad.

And yet whilst I am pretty scared I am also exhilerated, the idea of going on an adventure, being independent, seeing all these new landscapes, meeting new people, seeing new places. It's just thrilling. Sure, by the time I get to Santa Barbara I will be officially knackered, and yet have to find my way to my new home, introduce myself to my new housemates and move in, but its all part of the adventure, and I really feel in need of an adventure.