meish dot org: life, unfolding

Right then. We’re back.

Here’s how our holiday belated honeymoon added up:

• two weeks
• twenty hours in the air
• eight terrible movies
• one thousand and thirty-seven photos
• four locations
• five strange beds
• three year anniversary
• eight hours time difference
• 3 portions of eggs benedict
• a dozen Diet Mountain Dews (they’re like crack)
• 14% city hotel tax
• two new pairs of trainers
• 8 counties (Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, San Jose)
• 1 24-hour cold
• 2 boxes of tissues
• $2 to £1 (or near enough)
• 1300 miles of driving
• Highway 1
• 20% tipping
• 7 miles walking every day (average)
• 1 former prison
• two dozen sealions
• 1 comp bottle of champagne from the flight crew
• countless seals
• 3 whales
• 4 hailstorms
• 1/2 an incredibly sickly slice of carrotcakecheesecake
• half a dozen wineries
• 100.5 KTDE (your voice on the Redwood Coast)
• 11 hours sleep a night
• 1 Australian out for drinks
• 1-in-4 gradients
• 1 Norman-Bates-like innkeeper
• 3 brits bumped into in a bar (expats or otherwise)
• 300′+ trees
• 1 washeteria in a redneck town
• 30spf sunblock
• 8 (or possibly 9) fruity cocktails
• A bunch of nice local microbrews (Anchor Steam, Steelhead Pale Ale, Boont Amber)
• 1 night’s sleep lost on the way home
• two very happy people

We had a fantastic time. I’m still getting over jetlag a bit and trying to shake a bug I picked up on the plane home, but tomorrow it’s back to work (and also my birthday). I’ve got all sorts of thoughts jostling in my head about our American immersion – things about travelling and culture and society and American-ness and all sorts, really – but they’ll have to wait for a bit, or at least until I’ve processed the pictures in flickr and the whole experience in my head.

In the meantime, it’s good to be back.