2022 US Trip – Day 0 (McCain Backpack)

I’m now packed and waiting for Liam who has kindly offered (or been commandeered, pick your favourite) to take me to Heathrow just after midnight. To save the £5 drop-off fee we’ll have to work out the free long-stay parking option at the airport, that’ll be an interesting challenge in the middle of the night. I could have done with more sleep as well, but we can’t have everything.

So that we start on random drivel, I felt I should have one post about my McCain backpack, because at some point it’ll be nicked, accidentally destroyed or something else I might not like. I’ve worked out that it has been to around 30 countries, over 30 US states and I think nearly every county in the UK. It’s also made an appearance on just about every long-distance walk that I’ve done, so it’s a very well travelled bag. Bits keep falling off it, the zip is glued shut as it got broken (there’s another way in obviously) and it’ll probably fall apart in the next few years. But for the moment, I’m sticking with it. Although it regularly gets washed, it looks a bloody mess, but who wants decadent matching luggage anyway?

Bag aside, this will be an interesting trip, which goes via Dublin, as parts of it have already been troublesome in terms of needing to reschedule things (not least Amtrak who have amended, cancelled and refunded numerous trips I had booked) and half of it isn’t planned now. There are also rather cheaper Airbnbs making an appearance due to the horrendous pound and dollar exchange rate, meaning ever cost cutting measures. But over-planning is never good for the soul and I’m sure that nothing could possibly go wrong….

There might be a lot of posts over the next few weeks, I’ll do more shorter posts otherwise I’ll never catch up, so those people who subscribe to individual posts might want to switch them to the daily summary versions. Unless they like receiving exciting blog updates like the story of a bag.