Maybe it was because my head was the wrong shape. Maybe it was because I wasn’t American. Maybe it was because deep down I believed that baseball caps weren’t real hats. Maybe it was solar flares. Whatever the reason, I could never get one of the accursed things to fit properly.

People skilled in the art of baseball cap wearing always make it seem so effortless. The cap fits perfectly on the head. It has a lived-in look. It looks right. On me a cap looks all wrong. It’s too big. Or too small. It makes me look like a nerd. A nerd in a dumb cap.

I figured that if I wore a baseball cap for long enough it would adjust itself to the shape of my bonce and develop that lived-in look of its own accord. Which is all well and good but while waiting for that to happen I would still look like a nerd in a dumb cap. Like the growth of a beard – or the metamorphosis into a butterfly – the wearing-in of a cap is a process best performed out of sight of prying eyes. Thus it was that I preferred to wear other hats, or none at all, rather than exhibit the ghastly transformation for all the world to see.

It took a visit to the Circleville Pumpkin Show in Circleville, Ohio to show me the error of my ways. One cannot go to a pumpkin show and gaze upon 500kg+ pumpkins without buying a souvenir for one’s family. It isn’t the done thing. At least I don’t think it is, having never before or since attended a pumpkin show or gazed upon a monster pumpkin in Circleville or anywhere. The souvenir I chose to buy was a baseball cap with a disturbingly elegantly-stitched Circleville Pumpkin Show logo. Rather than carry it around with me I decided it would be more efficient to wear the cap for the rest of the day.

And it fit. Turns out that if you get one that’s the right size it will look better. Why didn’t I think of it before? Perhaps because [see list of reasons cited earlier]…

Emboldened, I purchased, on my return to Phoenix, a Yankees cap with which to watch the World Series at the hotel bar. I could have nailed my colours to the Phillies’ mast but there were already some guests in full Phillies attire and some balance was in order. It was a proper fitted cap too, not an adjustable one which my American acquaintances informed me really were not real hats. Not only did it fit but after I stood under the shower in it a few times it even accelerated the fitting-to-head process. And then the Yankees went on to win the Series. Result.

Imagine my dismay, then, to return home to Cambridge and find that Yankees merchandise had suddenly (or maybe gradually and I only just noticed) become the fashion accessories of choice for the chavs of the area. Having finally figured out how to wear baseball caps I now find myself looking like an undesirable. At least I still have my NRA cap. You don’t see many of those around town.

I was met by a chap I’ll refer to as The Texan, lest anyone from Houston law enforcement figure out his real name and arrest him for driving under the influence. It was already eleven o’clock at night and I told The Texan that I was hungry and thirsty. We decided to visit a rundown shack, or as he referred to it, a bar. The Texan, who was already drinking his third can of Bud Light, explained that since "in Texas 75% of drivers are drunk, and 95% of them are armed" it was wise to chill out and go with the flow. This seemed like sensible advice. I’d already lasted an entire week without being shot. Getting drunk and letting dudes abide ought to be easy enough.

At the rundown shack I was treated to several terrible beers including a Lone Star beer on the house. From what I could tell the barmaid was delighted to find someone who didn’t already know how bad Lone Star was so she could actually serve one. I also enjoyed a selection of shots, all of which had two things in common: colourful names and a main ingredient of Red Bull.

By now it was Tuesday and the Texan hadn’t been able to get time off work so I was left to fend for myself. He threw me the keys to a dilapidated car, claiming that whilst it lacked niceties like insurance or licence plates it would nonetheless be perfectly fine to drive around.

I arranged to pass the time with some other Houstonites of my acquaintance, Jaime and Dylan. We visited the Space Center, played some Borderlands, lamented that I wouldn’t be around long enough to visit the Renaissance Fair, reminisced about Star Wars: Galaxies and, with the Texan back from work, went bowling. There was good food, too. I enjoyed a fine steak, a spectacularly good snapper and, learning nothing from my near-fatal bloating in Ohio, visited the aptly-named International House Of Pancakes…

The final leg of my tour took me back to Wild West country in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The main event was shooting with CJ, his son and friend Trevor, who inexplicably gave me a baseball cap with the NRA logo to wear. Sadly I couldn’t wear it on the police firing range as we’d planned. The chap arranging that couldn’t make it so we did what any regular American would do at the weekend and drove out into the desert to shoot at paper targets with an impressive array of rifles (including an Enfield .303), shotguns and pistols.

A trip out west wouldn’t be complete without a horse ride. Sadly, mine was. The planned equestrian activities also had to be cancelled. On the plus side that left time to go to Santa Fe, whose narrow streets and clogged-up traffic suddenly reminded me of home. The Indians peddling tacky souvenirs to tourists were an unexpected touch, however.

Despite losing some items from the itinerary Albuquerque was enjoyable. I received great hospitality from CJ and his family and after the previous week’s activities a slow end to my trip was just the ticket. After all the distance I’d covered and the stuff I’d got up to I was ready for a holiday. Good thing I had another week at the Phoenix office to come.

At this point I need to give a big shout out to Pam, the office administrator at the Phoenix office, without whom I would be writing about a much less exciting week. Given the list of locations where my friends lived and the times at which they were able to meet me, she managed to arrange an itinerary and book flights for me without breaking the bank. Sadly, though, even Pam was unable to concoct a schedule which would give me a meaningful stopover in DC. I was all excited about going there and doing the Fallout 3 tour. You know you are a nerd when you want to go to the capital of the US to look at landmarks which you recognise from a video game where they’re depicted in a post-nuclear holocaust state of disrepair. As it happened I would have had to pay an extra $500 to fit it into my timetable and that didn’t seem worth it for a day and a bit.

The three places which did make the cut were Columbus, Ohio; Houston, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ll just pause here to allow any American readers to recover from bursting out laughing, which I discovered was the correct reaction to being told that I was going to Columbus. Visitors from other parts of the world please talk amongst yourselves.

…

OK. Columbus. Not exactly a popular tourist destination. The purpose of my trip, however, was as much about meeting the people I’d known from internet forums and online games for all these years as it was about seeing the sights. Sure I could have gone to New York by myself. I’m sure it would have been fun. This way I would get to find out what Dick and Don were like in person. And if I would be shot and killed by either one of them.

Dick had planned a whole weekend of fun activities. By coincidence he’d been invited to a Halloween party on Saturday night and decided that no one would mind if Don and myself tagged along. But I am getting ahead of myself. That was Saturday night. There was still Saturday afternoon to take care of before then. We were going to Circleville.

On this particular weekend the town of Circleville, Ohio was holding a pumpkin show. They had pumpkins. They had big pumpkins. They had bigger pumpkins. They had pumpkins weighing in at hundreds of kilograms. They had even bigger pumpkins than that. They had pumpkin pie. They had pumpkin ice cream. They had pumpkin drinks. They had pumpkin keyrings. They had pumpkin hats. They had pretty much anything you can imagine with pumpkins in them. It was totally bizarre and utterly fascinating.

For lunch Dick had arranged for a trip to Thurman’s, bar/restaurant which proudly boasted that it was soon to appear on the TV show Man vs Food. I was not familiar with the show, and asked my host for more details. I listened with interest as the premise was explained. A man (the one from the title) travels the country challenging restaurateurs to produce meals which he would be unable to consume in their entirety. "And who wins?" I asked. "Usually man."

Thurman’s had presented man with their famous burger. As you may have guessed it is famed not for its taste, admirable though it is, nor for its accompanying pickle, which is apparently standard fare for pretty much any meal Stateside. No, the burger was famous for being big.

I set about my burger with gusto and for a good while it looked as though I might be able to finish it. I’d had a week to acclimatise to American size meals and was doing quite well. Then it started to go badly wrong. I felt really very full. By the time we left the eatery and headed back to the car my stomach was already beginning to make some horrific noises. I pictured myself in the bathroom and began to wonder what it might be like to be a newborn baby not yet introduced to solid food. We arrived at my hotel where I advised my friends to wait outside and headed to the toilet, where I remained for some time.

I did not feel better as the day went on. As Jeremy Clarkson once wrote, I began to fear that I might die, then, later, that I might not.

Happily I did not die. I emerged from the bathroom several kilograms lighter and after a period of convalescence I was able to attend the Halloween party as planned. We arrived to find a healthy crowd of people already on the scene, dressed in some very interesting costumes. It soon became clear that Don and myself were in fact the only ones not in costume. It soon also became clear that, along with Dick and his girlfriend, we were also the only ones who were not gay. Dick had neglected to mention that it was a gay costume party. Or that he didn’t really know anyone there. Hey it’s a free party!

Actually the party was a lot of fun. Everyone was tremendously friendly and there were some great costumes. I was particularly impressed by the chap who dressed as "Homo Depot" although at first I didn’t get the joke. Another partygoer who arrived earlier had announced that he would be so attired and I was left scratching my head wondering what on earth the significance of "Homo Depot" could be. It wasn’t until the dude showed up in his orange apron and toolbelt that I made the "Home Depot" connection and had to concede that he’d done a bang up job. Not all the costumes were so good, though. One guy wore entirely normal clothes … with a scarf. Apparently he never usually wears scarves because all his friends realised instantly that it was the key element of his costume and recognised who he was supposed to be. Alas I was none the wiser.

Sunday’s main event was paintball. Dick and his friends (actual friends who he really does know) are keen players. I’d only ever played once before, in the cold and wet in Milton Keynes, and in truth I wasn’t looking forward to the game all that much as my previous experience had been miserable. The good news is that this time it was much more fun.

The sun was out so we weren’t shivering and slipping over the whole time, although I did take a tumble in one round. Don and myself identified a fallen log in the centre of the playing field as a good position to defend but there was quite a large area of open ground between it and our start point. We decided that as soon as the game began we would make a dash for it. The cry of "go!" went up and we dashed as promised. With just a few metres to go my foot caught a tree root or something and I came crashing to earth with a thud, a sitting duck out in the open. I began crawling to the big log despite the fact that I’d twisted my ankle quite painfully. To my surprise I saw Don crawling along too. After the game he told me that he’d seen me hit the dirt and thought I’d spotted the other team, so he decided to keep low too. I explained that actually I’d tripped over a root and gravity had done the rest. Also it hurt. So much so that I sat out the next two rounds, after which we’d all run out of paint and decided to call it a day.

After the game I was treated to a real cup of espresso which gave almost as much pleasure to the man serving it as it did to me drinking it. Dick’s pal, whose back yard we had previously been splattering in paint, used to run a coffee shop and he still had (as, let’s face it, you would) a proper espresso machine which he was only too delighted to fire up. He’d become disillusioned with his friends only being interested in drinking Starbuck’s coffee, as I’d become disillusioned with only being able to drink Starbuck’s coffee.

The espresso thus enjoyed we left. My final action of a surprisingly fun weekend was to enjoy a genuinely delicious meal at what we dubbed a Sous-chef type restaurant in reference to Don’s tongue-tied description of what he termed a Chef type restaurant, namely a restaurant with a famous chef’s name above the door. This modern take on a 50s diner, whose name I sadly forget, did not have a famous chef’s name above the door or indeed any chef’s name. Nonetheless the food was good and we were happy to bestow upon it our newly-created compliment.

Once she understood where I was coming from she was able to offer some suggestions from the beer list. Since I didn’t know and hadn’t tried any of them I decided the sensible thing would be to start from the top. The Shock Top.

I found Shock Top to be – not to put too fine a point on it – awful. It looked and tasted more like fizzy orange than beer, and I struggled to finish it. Indeed, had I not been jet lagged, tired and parched I may not have been able to. But finish it I did, whereupon I asked what was next.

Landshark, I was informed, is "just like Corona." As far as I could see the similarity began and ended with the fact that it was served with a slice of lime. This beer was even worse than the first one. It had almost no taste at all. Drinking it served no purpose other than to fill the bladder. Next.

The next beer was a big improvement in more ways than one. A product of the really, actually local Four Peaks microbrewery, Kiltlifter claimed to be a Scottish-style ale. If they say so. In any case it was markedly better than the first two.

Four Peaks is very popular in these parts. In fact I was later informed that they brew and sell so much beer that they shouldn’t technically be called a microbrewery at all, and had to apply for special dispensation to carry on operating as such. Pleasantly surprised by the Kiltlifter, I decided to try an 8th Street, billed as an English-style beer. This too was perfectly drinkable if not particularly English-style.

Four beers down … and only one to go really, because I sloped off to get some sleep at that point and the next day I discovered Widmer which was to become my staple for the rest of the week. Indeed on Wednesday I got talking to a chap from Jacksonville whom I convinced of the merits of my new-found favourite and who was so grateful at being introduced to it that he bought me three more in addition to the two I’d already had. And some Cognac, when I’d managed to explain to the barmaid what it was. And some more. I remember being the last to leave the bar. I remember prodding at breakfast the next morning. What happened between those two events is a mystery which may remain unsolved forever.

The very first words I heard spoken on my very first trip to the US were "wrong way boss" as a security guard indicated to one of the arriving passengers that rather than head towards all the desks with the immigration officers waiting to fingerprint you and ask you if the purpose of your visit was to commit a terrorist act, she had indeed chosen to go the wrong way.

At that moment I was suddenly terrified that I wouldn’t even make it through to the next room. Surely I would be deported for making some smartarse comment while getting my fingerprints done.

Maybe sooner.

The unnecessarily long immigration procedure meant that there was a lengthy and slow-moving queue of people snaking round the room. I joined it behind what appeared at first glance to be an overweight teenager. The "overweight" conclusion was easy to reach; he was indeed on the large side. The "teenager" part I discerned from his dire need of razor-on-upper-lip action and the way he could emit nothing more than monosyllablic grunts in response to the friendly greeting from a member of airport staff.

You know you’re a frequent flyer when airport security recognise you. That or you’re of middle-eastern descent and are in Phoenix. "How was the wedding?" asked the official, being just as friendly as she could. Wait, what? The wedding? This guy’s married? Perhaps he isn’t a teenager after all. "Hrrmph!" he replied.

The "conversation" continued in similar vein for a brief time before the gluttonous groom revealed that he really could talk but had trouble remembering how to fill in landing cards. "Where it says ‘Country of Origin’," – friendly raise of the eyebrows from the girl – "do I put Kuwait?" Well let’s see … did your country of origin change since the last time you were here? Or were you thinking of your wife’s?

Eventually the chap figured out how to fill in the paperwork he’d filled in who knows how many times before, remembered where he was from and managed to make it to the front of the queue. I occupied the remainder of time waiting for it to be my turn my telling myself not to make any sarcastic comments. I’d managed to restrict myself to one when the jobsworth checkin desk guy had questioned whether my cabin-size luggage was actually cabin-size and told me that yes I really did need to go all the way over to the measure-your-bag contraption and prove that it would fit. Later, after the guy checking my passport at departures had made some snide comment about me being from Birmingham I had skilfully avoided asking if he was trying to catch me out by checking if I knew what was written on my travel document or if he made it a habit to insult people.

Finally my turn at the desk. Just one more official to get past without cracking wise and they’d let me in the country… "Purpose of visit?" -"Business then pleasure." He looked up quizzically. "Business then pleasure?" -"Yes. I’m here on business. And then I’m going to visit some friends." -"Business then pleasure. Make sure you do it in the right order." Yes, quite.

And with that I was in. I was in the US. I had had my photograph taken, given my fingerprints, explained why I was here – nothing to do with overthrowing the government – and now I was … oh wait, customs. "Do you have any alcohol or food with you?" -"I wish."

After claiming my bag I made my way to Ground Transportation, which is American for The Exit, and looked around for the driver to take me to the hotel.

He wasn’t there. And that was because he didn’t exist. After observing that neither of the two blokes holding up signs with people’s names on were holding up a sign with my name on, and reviewing the hotel reservation documentation I’d been given, I concluded that I would have to make my own way to the Arizona Grand Resort.

So I did. Yeah, so that part of the story isn’t terribly exciting. The hotel is only five miles away the airport and there were lots of friendly taxis waiting. I was there in no time. And soon riding on a golf cart.

The Arizona Grand Resort, you see, is aptly named. It is in Arizona for a start. It is certainly grand, boasting a variety of excellent suites and villas which earn it a five-star rating. And it is a resort. There’s a water park, horse riding trail, sports facilities and all sorts of amenities. People bring their families for holidays there. And it has a golf course. Thus I was delivered to my room on a golf cart and told, after I explained that only my dire need of a shower was keeping out of the bar, that I need only call and the cart would come scooting back to whisk me anywhere in the resort I might wish to go. As it was a pleasant 38 degrees and I’d been sat in airports, on planes and in taxis for hours at a stretch, I declined. A nice walk was a much more appealing prospect.