[DISCLAIMER: SOME ELEMENTS AND SITUATIONS HAVE BEEN CREATED AND EMBELLISHED (very slightly) FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT. AT NO POINT WERE ACTORS OR STOOGES INVOLVED)

Dear Reader,

A most exciting few first days on which to report. Why don’t we begin in San Francisco where the weather was warm and balmy, and where men pretended to be women. It was perhaps the briefest stay of the trip so far. The Robbo arrived after an 11 hour flight feeling not a little bit discombobulated and taxied straight to the RV collection point where he found the Diggler (a little larger than usual) and met the RV (a little larger than a double decker bus). We immediately set about pootling over to the ‘Golden Gates Trailer Park’ which, as you may have guessed, involved a dimly lit drive across the red bridge. Robbo kept his eyes peeled for ‘jumpers’ but, despite some warm words of encouragement to a bearded man who looked like he might pull the trigger, the crossing passed without so much as a single suicide – hey ho.

Fast forward to Friday and Spence and Josh are cruising highway 1 which follows the windy coastline of Northern California – Cassels et al might have actually followed through if they were to see some of the coastal land formations. Everything was going good (lunch in the redwood forrest by the coast called ‘the big sur’ was particularly good chiefly because John our ‘server’ furnished us with water pistols to prevent birds stealing our food: needless to say we engaged the enemy with a ferocity not seen on American soil since Gettysburg and not a single ‘French fry’ was stolen). Unfortunately all this was to come, quite literally (nb a clever literary device is on its way), to a crashing end as within 10 minutes of leaving lunch Robbo pranged the side of the RV.

To be fair to Robbo it was a particularly tight corner and, given that our motorhome extends an impressive 25 feet, the fact that this has been his only run-in with the curb is nothing short of a minor miracle and speaks to the skill and precision of his driving. Diggler, on the other hand, appears a gluton for punishment (perhaps unsurprising given his internet history). Indeed, no sooner has we arrived in Downtown Santa Barbara than Spence smashed-off the wing mirror of some poor Hispanic man’s parked car - as Jay-Z might say “we had two choices y’all pull over our car or bounce on the metal and put the pedal to the floor”. We chose the later of these two options which proved to be ill advised as within a matter of minutes we spotted flashing lights behind us and were instructed by the police man (who, like all the coppers here, had an M16 on his passenger seat) to pull over.  “Well howdy there y’all. I just wanted to check y’all were going to leave a note on that car you just hit” booms the sturdy looking Sherriff, his hands on his hips, bullet proof shades concealing his eyes, moustache glinting in the last of the evening sun. “Absolutely officer” replied Spence (nervous, nearly teary), “Where’s you warrant?” replied Josh (cool, calm, collected, cool). Either way we wrote the note and sped over town to Isla Vista (or ‘IV’ as locals say) where we found Magneto (dressed like the man from Del Monte) already engaged in deep conversation with Spence’s housemates (including a very nice Austrian man called Clemens...“when are you wisiting las wegas”). Now, dear reader, I need hardly describe what happened next. Suffice to say that, yes, lager beer was involved. Actually that doesn’t quite suffice so let me add that we went to a couple of house parties where we filled-up RED CUPS from the KEG and played a local variant of BEER PONG – ‘man I love college’.  And so to Vegas where we are booked into a suite at Caesars Palace...#howaboutthatridein