Geoff Steward - In Search of Nice Americans

DAY 1: 1 AUGUST
Fly to Seattle. The Edgewater.

DAY 2: 2 AUGUST
Explore Seattle. Evening gig: Hurray for the Riff Raff. The Edgewater.

DAY 3: 3 AUGUST
Collect car rental and drive to Olympic National Park. Olympic Lodge Port Angeles.

DAY 4: 4 AUGUST
Olympic National Park. Olympic Lodge Port Angeles.

DAY 5: 5 AUGUST
Olympic National Park. Lake Quinault Lodge.

DAY 6: 6 AUGUST
Drop off car and fly to Juneau to cruise Alaskas Glacier Country. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 7: 7 AUGUST
Glacier Bay National Park. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 8: 8 AUGUST
Glacier Bay National Park. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 9: 9 AUGUST
Icy Strait. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 10: 10 AUGUST
Chichagof Island/Baranof Island. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 11: 11 AUGUST
Frederick Sound/Stephens Passage. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 12: 12 AUGUST
Fords Terror/Endicott Arm. Wilderness Adventurer ship.

DAY 13: 13 AUGUST
Depart Juneau. Fly to Salt Lake City, via Seattle. Drive to Sundance Resort.

DAYS 1417: 1417 AUGUST
At leisure. Sundance Resort.

DAY 18: 18 AUGUST
Fly from Salt Lake City to San Francisco. Drive to Yosemite. Tin Lizzie Inn.

DAYS 1920: 1920 AUGUST
Explore Yosemite. Tin Lizzie Inn.

DAY 21: 21 AUGUST
Drive to Los Angeles. Hotel Mr C.

DAY 22: 22 AUGUST
LA insider tour. Hotel Mr C.

DAY 23: 23 AUGUST
Universal Studios Hollywood. Hotel Mr C.

DAY 24: 24 AUGUST
Fly to Nashville. Hermitage Hotel.

DAY 25: 25 AUGUST
Nashville on foot tour. Hermitage Hotel.

DAY 26: 26 AUGUST
Countryside touring. Hermitage Hotel.

DAY 27: 27 AUGUST
Nashville at leisure. Evening gig: Opry Behind the Curtain tour. Hermitage Hotel.

DAY 28: 28 AUGUST
Drive to Savannah. Marshall House.

DAY 29: 29 AUGUST
Savannah insider tour. Marshall House.

DAY 30: 30 AUGUST
Drive to Great Smoky Mountains. Blackberry Farm.

DAYS 3132: 31 AUGUST1 SEPTEMBER
At leisure. Blackberry Farm.

DAY 33: 2 SEPTEMBER
Drive to Atlanta airport. Westin Atlanta Airport Hotel.

DAY 34: 3 SEPTEMBER
Fly to Liberia, Costa Rica. Journey to Punta Islita.

DAYS 3539: 48 SEPTEMBER
At leisure. Punta Islita.

DAY 40: 9 SEPTEMBER
Departure.

DAY 41: 10 SEPTEMBER
Arrival in UK. Welcome home!

1992 Walkman dinner selfies every six minutes David Bowie and Prince sabbatical

S OUNDTRACK : P RINCE W HEN D OVES C RY

I should be upfront with you. This is not quite a travelogue; it is not quite an autobiography; it is not quite a motivational self-help book; it is not quite a mid-life crisis. Frankly, I am not quite sure what it is that I have written or quite why you are reading it. Nonetheless, I have written it and you are reading it. I have had two books published previously: one was a childrens novel (which outsold Anthea Turners autobiography published the same week, as did all other books published that week); and the other was a textbook on brand protection. This should be better than both of them. Im glad we have got that out of the way. I think we are going to get on just fine.

The reason we are both here is that I have grown restless. Admittedly, it has been a slow growth rate; almost twenty-five years. One of my sperm has grown into a motorist in the time it has taken for my wanderlust to re-emerge. But, in my defence, I have been a bit busy.

You see, I last travelled in 1992. By travelled, I dont mean commuting on the 06.29 from Haywards Heath to Blackfriars, or driving on the A303 to Cornwall, or flying to Dubai for ten days of fake plastic holidays. Thats not travelling; thats just getting there. Despite regular attempts by Southern Rail to thwart me, I have just been getting there every day since, and sometimes back if the train crew hasnt become oddly diminutive (Train cancelled due to temporary shortage of train crew). The travelling I am talking about here is authentic Jack Kerouac travelling; romantic, carefree, cash-free, travellers cheque (do they still exist?) travelling; chucking some denim shorts, some tie-dye T-shirts and a Swiss army penknife (in case I had to whittle wood in a youth hostel in Sydney) into my green Karrimor backpack (do they still exist?) and hitting the road. Going off to find myself in south-east Asia and fulfil my destiny of becoming a musician, an artist or a writer.

1992. That shouldnt be very long ago. But alas it is. Travelling was very different back then. The backpack space that I saved on iPads, iPods and Kindles (and multiple chargers), I filled with a Filofax (like an iPad but made of paper), a Walkman (like an iPod but boxier), and books (like a Kindle but without backlighting). It was in the dark (or, depending on your age and perspective, enlightened) days when internet was where you kicked a football, when playlists were compilations, and when no one had yet developed the urge to take photographs of their mirrors or their meals to airmail back to their friends to demonstrate their happiness.

Travelling in 1992 involved forgetting (as opposed to blocking) your friends, when having twenty friends was impressive. In Facebook terms, a mere twenty friends would label you a self-harming loser, albeit that the term friend has now been redefined to include someone you have never met. After I left England for my gap year, I didnt communicate with my twenty (well, OK, six) close friends for ten months. I survived. Even they survived. Neither of us seemed to notice the others absence. When I returned home, they hadnt forgotten what I looked like despite my dearth of mirror photographs. Nor do I recall them asking to view photographs of my dinners, which is a shame as I ate locust in Thailand and snake in China (because it was the cheapest dish on the menu and the numerals were English whereas the characters were Chinese). I think you will agree that would have made for an excellent slideshow, for which I would also have made one of my legendary accompanying mix tapes with a witty, pun-filled title such as Low-Cost Meals or The Locust Eaters.

Now I have decided, twenty-four years later, that it is time to travel again. Time that my days are no longer broken down into chargeable time. Time that time becomes my own again. Billable time are two words I intend to replace with time out or, ideally, What time is it? I want to abandon exactitude, accountability, Oxford commas, and precision. For exactly three months. For, you see, I didnt become a musician, an artist or a writer after all. Instead, when I returned to England in 1993, I truly found myself. And I found that, disappointingly, myself was a lawyer. I hope you will forgive me and read on.

Lawyers generally charge their clients by the unit. A unit is six minutes, so there are ten units in an hour. Units are recorded electronically by smart-timers on our screens using a piece of software called CD Tracker; CD stands for carpe diem in Latin, or in lawyer-speak charge the day. As soon as we start working on a particular case, we click on the appropriate smart-timer, the meter starts running and the client gets charged for our time. Every lawyer is then assessed by their own utilisation rate: for how many units of six minutes every day have they been recording chargeable time? Non-chargeable time, for example tasks such as giving seminars, writing articles, keeping on top of legal developments, mentoring younger lawyers, visiting clients, networking with other lawyers, having a coffee or lunch, or being sociable with work colleagues, needs to be made up, as it is time not properly utilised. Utilisation rate is assessed against a standard, which varies from firm to firm, of at least six chargeable hours a day. The chargeable unit is institutional and constitutional in the legal profession.