While me and Jason were heading round the states, we ended up relying on this map and calendar to tell us where we were, where we were going, who we were and when to wipe our arses. Almost all our trip planning was done on this sacred parchment, and now here it is.

Its been through rain, lightning, thunder, mud, mosquitoes, ticks, Buffalo, waterfalls and survived!

I’ve split it down into two parts, and resized the map a bit

Hello all, its been a long time since I updated the blog!

I’ve put up the emails from the USA trip! I wrote them while I was out there, but didn’t think this blog was in good enough shape to put them up as opposed to emailing them. Now, however, I thought I would give it another go.

Please comment on them, I must say I found it good to write them while I was out there.

As for the photos: http://www.hpka.net/usa

Remember, these are shown in reverse cronological order

Sent as an email to friends

THE FINAL EMAIL IS HERE!

I’m back now. I’m writing this over a week later… sorry all, been a hectic few days.

We left Philli fairly early, had a fancy breakfast at the station and embarked on the last train ride… NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Once we got back to your friend and mine, Penn Station, NY we set about navigating the rail system. For the first time we both made a mistake and wound up on the wrong side of Manhatten. This ment a walk across Central Park, with lots of kids asking about the backpacks.

We got to Jazz on the Park hostel and met Gabby, by chance, as soon as we walked through the door. Wow, that saved a lot of time hunting her down. After some shinanigans at the hostel, where they tried to put us in a double room for the night, we headed out for the final Hard Rock. My god, we had done 8 by that point and it was still as good. Gab also managed to finally unclench my fist and lay down $25 for a tshirt. A damn good one actually.

We then headed down to SoHo, where I spent $7 on a tshirt from Fossil, thats about GBP�4….. I was well pleased! So much so infact I nearly bought the iPod I was dreaming of the whole trip. In the end though, I decided to save that for Canada.

For those of you wondering, I am planning to leave for Canada on 4th October. I am currently organising this with BUNAC and it may change.

Back to hostel, had a bit of tea and then met up with 2 of Gabby’s mates, who subsequently took us to a (rather poor) comedy show, which we left early to start some drinkin. Centurion in fact. Rules are simple, one shot of beer on the minute every minute. Cant leave the table. We ignored the last rule. I think we got through 70 shots or something before the game degenerated into giggles. We got talking to some Israeli blokes who were kid enough to offer some JD. This gave me a hangover in the morning.

Gabby woke me at 11am, long after the 7am “want to get up time”. We charged into NY to go to Toys R Us and a travel agent and have one last look before we headed to JFK. On the bus there I got talking to a lovely girl from Aus called Lisa, who, as it turned out was on the same flight. We decided to check in and sit next to each other. We then said goodbye to Gab, who was facing 18 hours in JFK before her flight to Trinidad, hope that was OK for you Gab, I know Trinidad must rock!

The flight back was nice. Talked to Lisa a lot of the way. They played some good TV episodes etc… The red wine was great. Got off the plane to a 1 hour wait for the bags, thanks baggage handlers

And so it came to an end! Jason headed for his train. Me headed for Dads car (that turns corners and has decent suspension). Jetlag sets in.

Photo’s have just been uploaded to http://www.hpka.net/usa

Thats it for the US trip. I’ll send more in Canada I suppose, its been great writing these emails.

Best Wishes All!

Henry

P.s. I suppose your wondering why it took a week for me to email this last one. Well, there are 2 reasons. Firstly I have a crap internet connetion up here that took this long to get working right. Secondly, I’ve been at Leeds Festival!

Hannah rang me up on Thursday night with a spare ticket… who was I to say no! Turned up on Friday for 3 days of rocking. The Foo Fighters on the last night were easily the best, although the lineup overall wasnt too great this year. Last night riots were also good to watch, especially the riot geared security who stood around having a cig. All in all a good time!