Country 8: The Yew Ess of Ay

The blog may be quiet for new entries for a couple of weeks.

That is because I am visiting an old friend. I do not just mean my friends who live in Seattle, but also the United States of America.

The USA was the 8th country I ever visited and I went there when I was 18, fresh faced and shy. See me climb the ladder at Frijoles Canyon... God how times change!

I spent the month visiting two of America's most popular and vibrant cities... Albuquerque and Detroit.

The reason for this unusual choice? This was 1992 and back in those days people still wrote actual letters and actually posted them to one another. Before the times of social networking websites, indeed even before the internet, when people around the world wanted to make friends there existed such folks as 'penfriends'.

I had a penfriend in Albuquerque and my Mum had one in Detroit with kids my age. So I flew to one and then Greyhounded to the other. In my defence I can only say I was too young to know any better... After spending 36 hours driving through a Nebraska cornfield... (what am I saying, Nebraska IS a cornfield) with the smell of chemical toilet in my nose, I have never repeated the Greyhound experience again... Nor for that matter, the Nebraskan one either.

I have also visited the USA a second time... On my second visit I bought a car in Los Angeles and drove it overland to Jacksonville, Florida via Vancouver, Chicago and Toronto (and many other places).

More of both of these trips will come later, as well as commentary on my forthcoming adventures in San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver.

Wish me bon voyage!