why StumbleUpon may have just sliced a sword through my bank account

Here I am, sitting in my bed at home, nursing my tofurky stuffed christmas stomach and listening to the beautifully horrific English rain rage against my windows like they have personally incited some serious injustice to the weather gods, when the combination of stumble upon (if you're a sucker for procrastination and have no idea what I'm talking about TURN AWAY NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE AND YOU NEVER WRITE AN ESSAY AGAIN), New Years New Found Spirit and a £4.99 piece of paperchase wrapping paper splashing a map of the US over my already heavily  blue-tacked walls, threatens to destabilize my savings, my future credit score and everyone and my neighbour's cat's bank accounts if I can get my hands on it. Curious as to what the holy crap could've caused such an extended sentence? Me too.

There I was. Grey's anatomy happily chatting away in a background tab as I happily avoid looking at filling out Student Finance expense claim forms or ringing STA to unblock the visa cashcard I managed to break the first time I used it. Enter StumbleUpon. The three year relationship we share means it knows me like the back of my neck (because seriously, you know if someone/thing can tell you what that shit looks like you have a legit intimate relationship where they clearly can reach the blind spots you'll never see (ooh the cliche metaphors) I mean, I flip my pasty little palms over at least a dozen times an hour so any hand perve could learn the contours of my life and heart lines) I digress. Stumble upon. Does what it says on the tin. With webpages. Google it. First stumble I kid you not reads thus: (I'm not sure what punctuation to use here, I'm like a 5 year old when it comes to keyboard squiggles. Any clarification welcome) "27 surreal places to visit before you die". Now I have totally banned the would 'should' from my life (it causes so much strife), but come on, I'm masochistic. So ofcourse I take a peek. First line - "This is when a savings account would come in really handy". Excellent, 6 years of horrific bank tellering, student guiding, bar work and cleaning in a psychiatric hospital were about to metaphorically disappear. So I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling and

BAM

no..wait, that's just the Grand Canyon. How cliche. Yawn. I don't want to live a google image life.
WAIT. WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT. LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS.
QUICK.
TO GOOGLE IMAGES.
(And you know how girl loves to google)

A half hour search later, eyes bulging with the gluttonous promise of achingly beautiful landscapes, and a terrifyingly adventurous plan is born, mapped by previously mentioned wall map conveniently located directly in front of me. Let's not be a passive pinterest pinner and actually see if there's weight behind any of these stumbled upon places.

Finish my year in Portland (somehow tear myself away from the Pacific North West. Panic about levels of crap that need to be shipped back home. Amassed libraries included.)
Head south to Cal (hopefully pick up Miss Brown)
And then this. All of this...

before getting kicked out of the country for overstaying my VISA and running up more debt than any one person can even imagine at 21.
But hell. Ima do it. And y'all are going to be bored to tears with every detail of me making this crazy crazy plan come to fruition.

Thoughts on a postcard? In exchange for legit promise to update you on real run ins with TERRIFYING WILD ANIMALS raccoons, first Thanksgiving Turkeys in Cape Cod, Reed kids gone wild at Spring/Fall, When Tash and the Californian contingency came to town, Nashvillian Cowboy Boots, Dollywood and Men with guns on greyhound busses (yes, I did unnecessarily  lose my shit a little)?