A Month?!?

Yep, tomorrow will be 30 days on the road!

I do miss my family and friends, and even my horribly worn out futon (I bought it from Service Merchandise, when I used to work there, so you know it's past it's prime), but I am fully enjoying this trip.

I have seen many things and met some great people (some of whom I've posted on here).  I have not been able to keep up with this blog as fully as I would like because of the many things I have seen and done.  I have appologized numerous times for that.  Really, I am appologizing because, though I knew it was an immense undertaking, I didn't think I would have such a backlog to post.

I received no feedback from my proposition to post up each day and it's locations, and then update these posts with details and pictures as I have the opportunity, but I have decided to go ahead and implement that idea, and see how it works.  At the worst, some of you (and I, too) may have a hard time following my updates, but it will mean a frequent update giving at least a general idea of what my days are like.

Certainly, it shouldn't take most people 30 days to only get from Tampa to Carlsbad, but for me it has.  This means I am definitely not on pace to get to Alaska before the beginning of May, which will result in higher cost for the ferry.  I will likely take my alternate route in, which involves a drive through some of Canada, then taking the ferry, or taking the ferry out of Alaska instead of into (which was my original plan, but I changed based on the discount before May).

This particular issue is a big part of what my scheduling was based on, but of course, each day on the road is an expense, and having no income, time is still a factor, so I will continue to move around the US with as few down days as possible (likely faster than I have thus far, but I will try to avoid it being a grueling pace).  This means my full updates and pictures will probably continue to be delayed, but my implementing the aforementioned update process, some level of update will come almost every day, and it will keep the day's posting close to the date it refers to, rather than having all of them a month out.

Good news about that is I am out of Texas, so I should be able to go from state to state more quickly.  Bad news is Alaska is 3x the size of Texas, and I haven't made it there yet.

I have found that a lot of the gear I brought is extraneous, and a number of pieces of it have proven to be more useful than I thought they would be.  Of course, that evaluation could change as the trip comtinues.  Of particular importance has been the pillow and the blanket I brought for Eric on the first night, but wasn't planning to bring at all.  The pillow, for when I make camp somewhere.  The blanket for when I sleep in my car.  Not only does it provide warmth (which isn't always a good thing), but most importantly, it blocks out the street lights and the lights of other vehicles when I'm at a rest stop.

With all that said, I will start posting the unposted locations by day.  Then I will post this, so it will be in proper sequence with those.