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Our mission, which we decided to accept, was to drive a Ford Bronco from Dallas to San Francisco. The Bronco was my wife's ex-husband's SUV - which we were going to deliver to their son in San Francisco.

We flew into Dallas from London and spent the first night in a Dallas hotel. We waited for delivery of the Bronco the next day. The ex husband arrived with the Bronco. He took us to lunch and then we started our journey.

He had advised us before we left London to bring cassettes with us to play in the truck. Being her ex, we took no heed of his advise and decided that we would just buy cassettes once we got to the States. We discovered that by 2003, America no longer sold cassettes; everything was on CD.

The entire journey was plagued with my wife trying to tune the radio to a decent station. It seemed that a crackling, static kind of song had made it into the top 40. We heard it all across the States over and over again.

We had a large delivery window as my wife's son in San Francisco wasn't going anywhere. So we took our time taking seven days and extended the trip to 2,293 miles.

We were just making it up as we went along (except for a planned stop in Albuquerque). We booked all accommodation on spec. I've done many road trips and I like to get into the designated town around 5 - 6 o'clock; find the motel and then go out for a drink and dinner. After driving all day, the drink is important.

After leaving Dallas, our first stop was Childress, Texas. We checked into a motel, got freshened up and asked for a recommendation of where to eat. Millie's was the place in town we were told, so off to Millie's we went . We walked into this bustling restaurant, which looked more like a military dining mess than a restaurant. That wasn't important as the pre-dinner drink took priority over the aesthetics of the restaurant. Shortly after being seated the waitress came over and asked "Can I get ya' all something to drink?"

"The tallest, coldest beer you have please" was my response.

"Sorry Hun, this is a dry county. We don't serve alcohol".

I wasn't hungry after that as I was full from swallowing anger.

The next day we got the hell out of Childress County Texas and continued our journey. Early into the day's journey we passed through a small town on highway 287 and much to our disbelief, men were actually sitting on the porch of a general store, in cowboy hats and on rocking chairs. And there was a parade brewing. We pulled into a nearby parking lot and decided to watch.

The floats

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