AK's big american ROAD TRIP!

[teamak]

first off it is a road trip team bob even though were not driving ourselves its still a road trip, we will be on the road for 10 days total! if that isnt a road trip i dont know what is!

Right with that out of the way heres the deal, this is set up for team AK to keep the banter500 up to date as i go through america. i will hopefully be able to post stuff here quite often but i cant promise anything you can also use this to discuss any american challanges banter you might have.

the basics of the trip is that Lauren (cecilwinthorpe) and i will be traveling through the states for 6 weeks trying to do as meny of the american challanges as possible this is the big one baby!!!! with out giving too much away we will be traveling on a bus through the vast majority of states and getting a lot of points.

For all those who think we in the banter500 havnt been doing anything in a while this should show them that banter of this level takes a lot and i mean a LOT of planing, months worth of work have gone into this in order for maximum points to cost ratio.

Lauren and I leave for New York on sunday the 25th of june and come back on sunday the 6th of Aug. please pray for us that the Lord keeps us both safe.

[cecilwinthorpe]

Hey guys its team AK here, i cant be bothered signing out of this account and into my own, its the eve of battle! i am in dublin getting some final things ready for heading off on this trip, lauren has spent the last 2 hours making final changes to the bus timetables (while i was playing with my DS of course) and appart from the expected last second stuffing of our bags with every thing we think we might ever need were ready to go! this is not going to ba any small feet were talking a lot of mileage and a lot more banter in not a lot of time. oh and more good news there are repotes comming from the states that the tornado season has started early this year and with a BANG! so hopefully i will get to see one and if im really lucky i will almost die! points are points!! right so im off to pretend to sleep as we have to ba at the airport at about 2 tomorrow afternoon which means an early start for the two of us. i should be able to update you all in denver about the 28th or 29th love you all!

[robster]

I can testify to AKs planning (he has a massive ring binder file full of info and contacts) and his bizarre derise to visit only the tackiest of attractions in this amazing country. He nearly made my wife cry with his initial description of the places he planned to go. Also, she reckons he'll bake alive in those buses (she's made spurious claims about the proportion of psychos and schitzos to ordinary banter hunters on these things). I had planned to make AK the best roadtrip tape ever, but it fell through. I'd planned to unleash massive ammounts of kenny rogers on him, as bob once did to me.

[teamak]

well banter500 peeps we have arrived in greenley colorado (about 45 minutes north of denver) the bus wasnt too bad a bit cramped and hard to sleep in for a guy my size. 1 day and 18 hours with 4 transfers wasnt too bad the time passed very quickly indeed, and as for the people on the bus with the rare exception of one or two everyone was really nice and some were good banter! right im heading to the rocky mountians now for the day with marc i think. or we will just hang out or whatever. i will try and get back you ya'll as soon as i can

[bob]

Who cares about sleep! Tell us about points man! points!

[robster]

I want to hear how close Liz has come to going postal on you. If I had just given birth (and who says I haven't) I would have little patience for visitors, be they banterseekers or nay.

[teamak]

marc and liz have been great there was a free flat that isnt being used during the summer so lauren and i are staying there to let liz's mum stay in the bacement bed, they have been great to us and lauren and i have tried to stay out of their hair as much as posible. oh and team bob i really cant tell you what im doing just know that i am racking up the points, the fare yesturday turned up some supprise points but it will be funnier to see, i can tell you it took some mechinical apparatus to do it! ladies and gents im winning this thing!

[Jonny Kirk]

i don't like this. somehow i feel totally out of control, and hoping that AK won't just stumble about points willy nilly. i reckon the buses will loose their initial appeal very quickly. i am dreading doing route 66. not to take away from AK's trip, my flight out has now been booked. ladies and gentlemen, september 2nd is when it's all gonna happen. i shall hopefully be spending 3 weeks there of intense banter. i am flying out with Gareth, spending a week with him, before he flies back. I'll then go to Chicago, meet up with another friend Dave who is flying in, and then picked up by our friend Mel, who can provide us with shelter, and hopefully some more points.

AK, I know some of the challenges need to remain a secret, but are there any snippets you can throw to us, or even just how many points you have amassed so far?

hope you and lauren havent killed each other yet. hope you aren't getting any points. going to senior camp on saturday (8th july - 15th), so if you have any updates to pass on let me know.

[teamak]

well team JK im in a hotel casino in vegas on a pay internet thingy, i hope camp is going, went well! i can tell you that i have gotten all the points i thought i woud so far and a few supprise ones everything is looking up for team AK, congrads on the flights i hope the plane never takes off!!! lol i will reply fully in a few days when i get to my family in arkansas until then team AK is winning this!!!!!

[teamak]

ladies and gents there has been some serious anti banter happening here i have lost my camera or had it stolen which ever, and all the pics of the holiday so far were on it including all the banter pics here is a little run down of the banter i have lost,
ride a mech bull
kill 2 birds with 1 stone
6 establishments with my name
3 street names
ride in a helicoptor
go horse riding
do route 66
go there do it and get the t-shirt
3 pun based places

thats all the banter ones i can think of but on top of all that all the pics from the trip are gone this is the essence of anti-banter i was hoping anti-banter wouldnt come into the trip but whare ever serious banter is in play anti-banter manages to pop up and spoil it.

[Jonny Kirk]

absolutely raging. does lauren have any photos taken? i would be gutted. do you have any form of evidence for stuff that you have done? i am willing to give you the points for things that you have lost, but if you had stuff for the site that would be even better. does lauren have a camera with her, or would you need to buy another one? there might be other ones that you'll come across again during your trip, so all is not lost. though you must be pretty raging.

you do as i recall have a lot of receipts for different things. i am pretty sure you have loads of businesses with your name in it (i think you may have completed this one already). the t-shirt you should have to keep, so all that is required is a photo and perhaps a story.

[robster]

no mercy!!!! This is truely the adventurous spirit of banter! Just as one brave competitor appears unbeatable, Banter reaches down and swats him on the ass, making it anyone's game again.

[MelInAmerica]

I have to say i'm sad that JK has allowed others to know of his plan.
To Team AK...where are you currently? Are you going through Illinois? You should so totally go to St. Louis in Missiouri..its lovely there...

johnnys friend mel (from illinois)

[teamak]

Hey YA'LL im in an internet cafe in miami just 2 blocks from miami beach whare i spent a bit of today fafing about the sea its hot here! but enough of that stuff i keep remembering banter i done and had pics of but dont have proof of anymore luckly lauren has some pics on her camera of us in a helicoptor but none of us horseriding im thinking im going to come back to calaforina next summer for 2 weeks and do all the things again that i lost the photos for but im not sure who can predict banter. its not only the banter pics i have lost all the pics of the entire trip were lost, lauren and i decided to only use one camera until the memory was full then go to the next one and because my camers was better i used mine for everything im more ripping about that than anything but sure still lots of points to be had!
let me see so much has happened since i last got in touch, my family in arkansas were a blast we got out to the lake for a few days which was cool i got 2nd dagree burns on my shoulders which was nice lol, doing better now incase your wondering, my uncles deck boat broke down in the middle of the lake and i had to tow them in using a jet ski i rented it was kinda fun.
in the comotion of loosing my camera i actually didnt get a photo of me supprising my aunt but trust me i did she nearly slapped me for not telling her i was comming then threatened to cut my hair off, i have a few old photos of her i can put on the site though so its all good, tomorrow im going to see about renting a surf board, i dont think there is much surfing here except wind surfing but as long as i surf its all good, also im going to south beach to surfive the bermuda triangle so its all good. i have only another day here in miami then im off to washington DC tor some fun in the capital.
oh and before i forget i have been spreading the banter500 accross the world while i have been here with some of the people i meet on the busses, one couple new zealand were doing the same deal as us traveling round the states and i enlightened them as to why i was doing it they loved it i showed them the list and they laugh very loudly on the bus i think we got i few looks from others on the bus but they took the address and we exchanged email addresses to keep in touch so now im trying to think of chalanges i can do there! its all who you know not what you know you know........ right people its 10.30pm here and its still 25C outside so im going to live it up miami style!!

Love you all!!

Team AK