The road trip in summary

After twelve jam-packed days I’m back in St Louis. I’ve got over 460 photos to sift through (we went a bit mad) and nine days’ travel to write about, I’ve just been pumped full of vaccinations for the journey down to South America, and I’ve got to get ready for more travel down to Memphis, Tennessee, and Virginia. But I’m going to make a cup of tea with the tea bags my mum helpfully sent over from England and get done all that needs doing. Mmmn, tea. It’s on the brew now, so I’d better go and get it.

The map [Ed: since gone from the web] shows which states we travelled through on our trip. The light red states are those we travelled through but didn’t stay overnight in; the dark red states are those we spent at least one night in. The lonely state down the bottom, Georgia, is where I stopped for a connecting flight on my way back so it doesn’t really count but I’ve put it in there for historical reference.

I’ve already written about the early days of the trip, but still missing are those days in DC, New York City, and, after Brian had left us, New England. I’ll split these into three entries over the next few days. I had a great time on the trip (and I hope Brian and Paula did too), and I learned a lot about the US — geographically, politically, and culturally — in that time. To summarise: DC is a far more interesting city than you’re generally led to believe, and was stuffed full of great things to do; New York City was beyond my wildest dreams, and was quite simply fantastic; and New England is a beautiful place that deserved far more exploration than we could give it.