Wrap-Up Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

So, I thought I'd wrap up this blog by revisiting some of our concerns and expectations going into the trip.

Our number one concern going into the trip was that all the road food was going to cause us to turn into fat tubs of goo. Actually, we ate reasonably well on the road overall, actually managing to completely avoid eating any meals at fast food restaurants during our trip. Note the very careful wording of that sentence. We did have one lunch at a Pizza Hut, which I guess some people might lump into "fast food", but I think that classification is just wrong. Because, damn it, pizza ain't fast. It took us 20 minutes to get our freaking pizza. And we sat at a booth and a waitress took our order, just like a normal restaurant. Nothing fast food about it. Right? Right?

Oh, and we also had a couple Blizzards at Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen, I'll grant you, is fast food, but a Blizzard doesn't qualify as a "fast food meal". We also had lunch at a Togo's sandwich shop, which is a chain, but not really a "fast food" chain.

I don't think I'm over-rationalizing here, do you?

For the record, in the end, Kathy and I gained a total of 5 pounds between us over the 7 weeks. Which ain't great, but if you saw the pile of ribs and fried chicken I put away in Memphis, you'd know, it coulda been a lot worse.

In terms of expectations, I think Kathy and I expected that 7 weeks would be enough time to see everything we wanted to in the U.S. and Canada. But the truth is that the country is mighty huge. Well, we knew that it was huge, but it turned out to be, er, huger than we expected. So, in the interest of time, we missed out on a bunch of stuff that we really wanted to see. Exhibit A being, yes, Carhenge. And we discovered that there wasn't enough time to fully soak in each city that we went to -- there was just enough time to get a flavor of the city and then move on. Which was still pretty darn great, I must say.

I'm not quite sure what my expectations were for this blog, but the whole blog-writing experience was pretty darn fun. For anyone that decides to take a long trip away from home, I would highly recommend the whole blogging thing. It helped us feel in touch with everybody even though we were hundreds or thousands of miles away. It was fun to write about our experiences, and even more fun to read everybody's comments about what we wrote. Thanks to everyone for their comments over the past few weeks -- it kept us from feeling isolated and out of touch.

Feel free to post any comments or questions, but otherwise, I guess that's it. Hope you all enjoyed reading our endless blatherings. Back to reality now. How sad.