Well folks, it's that time of year again - Sumiki's annual whirlwind tour around North America, and the third year in succession in our evil plot to turn a continent into a backyard.

After over 16,600 miles in over 60 days in the first two Great American Road Trips, not to mention the sanely paced road trips of my younger and more vulnerable years, I have been in 42 states and exactly half of Canada's wonderful provinces. Looking at a map and checking off the places I've been in leaves a conspicuous gap: the northeast. I've not been any further northeast than upstate New York, which I last visited in 2011 en route to Toronto.

It was therefore a given that a trip to New England and the Canadian Maritimes must be taken. In fact, that destination had been talked of long before the "out west trip" that ended up spawning the first two expeditions. But I'd never given it that much thought until recently - I mean, after all, those states don't have too much land area to cover. A trip there would not be on the imposingly grand, nigh-impossible, and totally outlandish scale of its immediate predecessors.

I was wrong. There's a lot of stuff to see, and a surprising amount of mileage to cover. It's not going to be in the 8,000-mile range, but it'll likely be well over 5,000 when it's all said and done. By trip's end, I will have been in every one of the 48 contiguous states and at least nine Canadian provinces. (Newfoundland is very iffy at this point due to time considerations, but I'm holding out hope.)

We also just might find ourselves in France.

I, for one, am not swimming across the frigid waters of the north Atlantic, if that's the mental image you got. Off the coast of Newfoundland lie some 100% French islands, a colonial holdover in archipelago form. They use the Euro and European electrical outlets, and French culture and food abound. They're in the Greenland Time Zone, and they even have a guillotine. The chances of doing this are profoundly slim, but ... there's still a chance.

So, as it was last year and will be again, when I say "American," I really mean "North American."

Of course, a Great American Road Trip isn't a Great American Road Trip unless I meet some BZPers. In 2012 I attended the first public day of Bricks Cascade in Portland and in 2013 I met Paleo and Takuma Nuva in the Twin Cities, so I'm anticipating another BZP meet-up this time around. If you live in that neck of the woods, shoot me a PM and we'll talk!

So buckle up, BZPower. It's shaping up to be the strangest trip so far.

P.S.: I set up a Tumblr to supplement this blog. In addition to reaching a larger audience (as well as the sizable BZP-Tumblr overlap), expect pictures and assorting musings there as well. There's not much there as of this entry, but rest assured that there will be.