Jip,
I guess I am still filled with the wanderlust that has caused me to live an unconventional life these past 20 years. Your post has caused me to ponder a couple of things. It seems to me that I have watched a video on the internet (You Tube?) with a large flock of acrobatic starlings in the Lake District. Have you seen it. It has caused me to watch the birds that are starting to flock together to begin their flight south. I doubt I will ever see what that video shows, though.
To put in perspective the size of the USA. We live in St. Ignace, MI. That is about 900 miles east of us or 1350 kilometers. Arizona is about 2100 miles or about 3000 kilometers. We would expect to spend three days traveling and two nights sleeping to get there. We are going to go to Alburque, New Mexico first though to attend the Hot Air Balloon Festival held there in October. It is the largest balloon festival in North America, maybe in the world, with over 800 balloons lifting off daily. We'll spend a week or so there and then on to Arizona, probably Tuscon, Phoenix, and Sedona in that order. We will be looking at a possible market to sell our sunglasses in in Mesa, AZ just east of Phoenix. If that works out, it will limit our travel to 3 days a week. Bummer.
Also I thought I would mention that the State of Michigan is actually larger than England by about 4000 sq miles. I looked it up just because I was curious.
We'll keep the board updated.
Mick