Wilson's final thoughts

I've made it back to Denver. 8,700 miles, 280 hours of driving, 14,000 feet in elevation change from the Pacific to Pikes Peak. Burned some gas, ate some burgers, got wet, got hot. Took a few pictures along the way.

Time to take stock of the last 50 days.

More things I have learned:

• Colorado and Wyoming are the only rectangular states i.e there are only 4 straight lines to their borders.
• If thy vehicle hast come to the end of it's life thou shalt leave it randomly scattered about your property until the grass doth grow among it and it shall be joined by it's successor decrepit pickups to develop a rusting collection of dead trucks.
• Toads blink when they swallow because they don't have bones between their eyes and their mouths, so when they swallow, their eyes sink through openings in their skull and help push food down their throats.
• When it says 'gravy' on the menu, that can mean any style, any colour, any flavour sauce you can think of. It almost never means aaah, bisto.
• If thou findst driftwood on a beach, thou shalt arrange it in a semi-sculptural form.
• Most American drivers really don't like corners, in fact they have zero tolerance for lateral G taking every hint of a corner at less than 1/2 it's capable speed. This is so their superkingsizebiggerified coke or grandeemochalateeitsonlyblinkingcoffee doesn't spill a drop. Probably.
• Americans are obsessed with peanut butter, particularly in sweets. It's almost impossible to find a native chocolate bar without it.
• Public conveniences are in the main spotless, but if you suffer from Suddencubicledooopeningaphobia you're in trouble as the distance from throne to door is usually waaay too big to employ the foot-brace technique. This, combined with Is It or Isn't It^(TM) lock designs and barely there doors can make a visit rather tense.
• UK garages are leagues better than US garages for their broad selection of munchies and general supplies e.g. a range of snacks where peanut butter is not the primary ingredient.
• Lights in motels that function other than via a conventional wall switch have a wierd twisty sticky-out screw thing that feels like it breaks when you twist it, then nothing happens for 5 seconds before the light slowly comes on. Most disconcerting.
• It's nearly always worth going a bit further than everyone else.
• Alaska was bought from the Russians for about $7 million dollars in 1867.
• They avoid apostrophes in speech. I did not know that.
• A lot of American drivers seem to lack overtaking skills and either can't or won't overtake. They will sit on your bumper on straight roads and then pull out randomly in ridiculous places and ooze past like a snail trying to prove a point to slug. See previous learning on aversion to lateral G and glacial speedlimits.
• Whoever signed off on Hertz's 'Neverlost' sat-nav add-on should be spanked.
• You ain't nobody 'till you've adopted a section of highway.

Random Tunes on Shuffle at the right time in the right place:

As the thousands of miles and thousands of tracks went by it became increasingly apparent that Apple's idea of a random isn't actually that random, spitting out songs from the same album more often than I'd give 16,000 tracks credit for. It also became apparent that my toleration for less than 4 star tracks got less and less. Apparent too were the days when I just didn't want music (gasp, I know, but sometimes it just got in the way). In addition to that which has gone before, only these two stuck out enough for me to note them down:

• Dario G - Sunchyme chasing the sunset across Wyoming
• Dion - The Wanderer travelling down county roads in Nebraska

In addition to Zero 7's Simple Things working anytime anyplace, I discovered that pretty much any song on The Raconteurs Consolers of the Lonely album also works in any situation. Kudos.