My oh my… how differently my summer has gone from what I had imagined.After suffering through three miserable months of working in a small, republican/military Texan town full of mostly obese Christians, I set off on what I thought would be a three-plus month long trip traveling the U.S. in a camper van (aka Helen) with Beth and my cool hippie friend Karla, who planned to join us for a few weeks at the beginning of the trip.Within the first few miles of the trip Helen, who had just had a brand new engine installed, decided she also needed a new transmission.A few days later we set off again on our way to Wyoming to attend the North American Rainbow Gathering and visit some national parks.Within a day Helen was breaking down again.After visiting a few mechanics and continuing to find ourselves stranded on the side of the road, being towed by large, sweaty, cigar-smoking men, we decided to rent a car and continue on our trip through Wyoming.We decided that between Helen's bad health and it costing $120 for gas each time we filled her up, it would be a good idea to sell her and do something else with the money.

We spent a week in Boulder, Colorado looking for someone who wanted to take her off our hands, and finally found a lady who thought she was perfect and gave us $6,000 for her. We took the money, went to New York (which I reaffirmed that I hate) and flew to London with the intent of couchsurfing around Europe for about two months. The day we arrived the exchange rate was $2.20 to one pound, so we decided to leave the UK asap, which meant staying one night in London (which in total cost us >$150) and going to Amsterdam. I can't really remember much about Amsterdam, but I'm pretty sure it was a good time. We visited the North of Holland - saw the beach, went back to Amsterdam, went to Rotterdam - saw the zoo, went back to Amsterdam, went to Belgium - ate some chocolate, drank some beer, missed our flight to Italy (due to not understanding French and/or Dutch and something about a change in trains to get to the airport), went back to Amsterdam and decided to fly back to the U.S. (where our money is actually worth something), returned to Belgium, went to some strange underground illegal outdoor party, and flew to Orlando. We contacted some beach hostels and found one in the Everglades that would let us clean a few hours a day in exchange for our beds. We stayed with my sister for a few days and decided to take a greyhound bus to Miami (hoping not to be beheaded by crazy Asian-Canadians) and take a city bus from there.We pre-arranged a cab to the bus station, which never came, so we called another cab, which also never came.Then we saw the bus drive by.We thought perhaps that the greyhound site rejecting our reservations and the cabs never coming were signs that maybe we shouldn't go, so we booked plane tickets to Cincinnati instead.Apparently the city we would have come to has since been evacuated due to Tropical Storm Fey.

Yesterday we went canoeing, tomorrow we're going to Red River Gorge until we get tired of camping, then I have no idea what I'm doing.I think I'm staying in Cincinnati until mid-October to help my sister with her baby (she's due September 29).The only future plans I have at this point is a Madonna concert in Chicago at the end of October.

I've discovered that planning is a complete waste of time since nothing ever goes a planned. We'll see what happens.

P.S. Gas costs an average of $8.70/gallon in Europe, so stop complaining and sell your SUV.