INTRODUCTIONS

Hi there!

So, you're interested in my holiday in the states. Before I throw you into the deep end of my 14,000 word journal with no idea as to myself or the people who accompanied me, this page serves as a quick background. Plus its great filler for photographs I couldn't find any use for in the Journal.

To begin, lets introduce the 3 protagonists in this non-fictional story.

Firstly there is James 'JB' Browne, a friend of Olivers since their years at Stamford Boys School and throughout the time between its ending with their finishing of A-levels and the eventual end of their student lives at separate Universities. James is the 'Lance Armstrong' of the group, providing the push necessary to get us to actually do anything with even remote risk. Perhaps being a little too over-ambitious given his injuries in the holiday, but a great person to spend the time with. He started the holiday before us by spending several nights in San Francisco, as I've already seen the city and Oliver thought it would be better to go another time, it was timed well when we met him at the airport.

He is currently 26 and works as a manager for Unilever, makers of all things that exist, and runs for 45 minutes every morning. He is definitely not gay, yet raises many a roof.

Here is James doing what he does best, whatever that is.
(as below, all pictures in the journal will also be thumbnails that can be enlarged through a left-click)

Secondly, comes my fellow brethren, Oliver 'Ol' Steele. Unsurprisingly, I've known Olly since I was born yet we've managed to not kill each other despite being siblings around the same age (4 1/2 year gap). He organised the trip amongst other things, therefore he is God as far as I'm concerned and no there's no sycophant in me whatsoever. Oliver provided the ability to stop James from killing himself, despite what happened on the holiday, stabilising the group with a mature attitude and also being the only one who has a female friend waiting for him when he gets back.

He is also currently 26 and used to work as a manager for the RBCC (Russian-British Chamber of Commerce), but left the job to pursue other interests within the Treasury. This giving him the free month necessary to complete the trip. Oliver wants to be a fireman when he grows up.

Here's Ol shitting himself as he loses his footing on a rock and slides over ONE AND A HALF FEET.

Thirdly is myself, Edward 'Rapunzel' Steele. I'm the geek of the group, providing technical knowledge when each persons electrical equipment goes wrong and generally whining about the windows of the car being open when its doing 80mph. I'm supposed to be the rafter of the group due to the umpteen times I've done it in the past, both in 2 man craft and on 16 man 'sausages', thus this gives me the right to say that any rafting on the holiday is easy and that I know everything about rafting. To quote Without a Paddle, "So, what rafting experience do you have, Class IV, Class V?" "Put those numbers together dude! I've done a class 45!"

I'll be 22 in mid September and am technically unemployed given that I finished my Computer Science degree and am now waiting until my Business masters starts in October. Thus I have lots of free time in which to do this holiday.

Here's me in my urban psycho hat, the only bloke for 300 miles with long hair. I don't normally grimace, sun was bright, honest.
(Just FYI, you wont see many photos of myself given that I was also the only photographer all holiday.)

With little places booked along the way, the holiday stood to be rather open ended. Olly had set out a general plan, but we still changed our mind in places, sometimes having extenuating circumstances do it for us.

So, without further adieu - An American Adventure (1.7MB page but should be 56k friendly if you read linearly)

ALL VIDEOS ARE MPEG-1