Trains Planes and Automobiles.

Gearing up for a road trip, so different to that we've already completed, is no easy task. For a start, we don't have a home on wheels to store stuff, a comfy on board bed to sleep in or a fridge for the drink!!!!!

I (we) have planned a USA road trip for 50 years. From the earliest I can remember watching TV, it had always been the US shows that I marvelled over; The Littlest Hobo, Casey Jones, 77 Sunset Strip, Dragnet. So many 'great' programs that took me away from the normality of growing up life, to a place far far away, with fast cars, wide open spaces and buildings higher than anything I'd ever seen.

Fortunately I have a wonderful partner, wife and friend who shares that dream with me, so for almost three months we will be travelling across almost half of the USA, using various modes of transport and staying with people we know, people we don't know, hotels, motels and probably some dives as well. We wanted to do much more, go to the West coast, Vegas for Jake and San Francisco for me. But America is a bloody enormous place, not enough time to do it all, certainly not enough money. So we've settled for a trip that centres on the thing we both love best, the music. It's going to be a journey of discovering new bands, visiting places that are steeped in the history of Southern Rock and Blues and seeing 'Small Town USA' everywhere we can. Americana.

We're not good at tourist stuff; Niagara Falls (enough bloody wet where we live thank you), the Grand Canyon (big hole in the ground). No, our trip will be as we live. Talking to folk, visiting bars (best places to talk to folk) seeing bands (ditto) and experiencing stuff that ordinary people do.

Living out of a suitcase isn't going to be easy, packing for almost three months warps the brain. Not mine, Jakes! But we've taken advice from various blogs and forums and have settled on basic stuff that can be washed and easily maintained.

Evidently the Interweb is much better in the US than in France and Spain, so updating this bog should be easier than our Euro trip. Time will tell.

So here we are, at the beginning again. Life is like that, new beginnings, keeping stuff exciting and interesting. It's what we've planned, we're doing it, it's bloody brilliant!