Go West.

OK kids, Part 1 of... ooh... 265 of the road trip saga:

We were going to be leaving NYC sometime on Wednesday morning, but that kinda fell by the wayside as it became increasingly obvious that we were as organised as something not very organised in a place for the terminally befuddled. It must have been about 10pm before we got anywhere - anywhere being some place in Pennsylvania, so the story only really starts on Thursday morning.

Pennsylvania...how can I describe it? Trees, rocks, silos...not the most exciting state in the Union, it has to be said. So, the road became the most exciting thing to talk about, with amusingly named haulage firms (NBS - No Bull Shit Haulage) and a semi-sandwich: one truck being mounted by two others beside the hard shoulder.

Most of my astonishment concerned the ability of the big red driving machine to cope with the frighteningly large amount of stuff crammed into it. It felt like that Monty Python sketch wherein one more sliver of paper would have resulted in an explosion of car parts and boxes, followed by a tyre wobbling forlornly down the highway.

The one exciting part of that first major leg was seeing Punxsatawney on road signs and wishing I could go there to gorge myself on pastries and rob banks like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Oh, that reminds me - lots of roadkill already...

So, next was Ohio...Flat, corn and more corn. And more corn - this is going to be a recurring theme, trust me. If anything, Ohio was even more dull than Pennsylvania, but had toll roads. Um, that's it - sorry, not an exciting state all in all.

Indiana - ahh, now this started off a little more promisingly - instead of corn, we had genetically modified corn and the Amish - somewhere (well, you don't see them on the freeway, do you?). One thing in passing, is it the law to have every bloody barn in this country painted red? I mean, I always thought that red wasn't the most popular colour after the 50's, but any structure bigger than a trailer is painted this dark crimson colour- although that did help to fuel several Twister-related disaster daydreams. We stopped about halfway through the state fot the night, in Elkhart, a romantically named but sadly aesthetically neglected part of the country. Not bad for the first proper day of travelling, despite all the corn.

Dave xx