Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob

I've had a few people ask me what I think I'll miss while living abroad. My usual response -- and my main one here -- is that I'm not sure yet, because I don't know what I won't be able to get. American culture, especially the food, has established a strong foothold in Britain, evidenced perhaps no more strongly than by the fact it now has 700 KFCs.

No, I haven't eaten at one.

No, I don't plan to.

But I figure there's bound to be a few things that leave a little hole that can't quite be filled by anything else.

1. Baseball.

For all the American sports that have captured British attention -- football chief among those -- baseball simply hasn't. It is, after all, a quintessentially American game, and in any event, why watch baseball when you can watch cricket? But I'll miss simply sitting at a ballpark taking in a game, spending a few hours with no particular place to go and often with no particular rooting interest.

Not that there's baseball in Grand Junction, mind you, with the exception of the Junior College World Series. (No, really, it exists. Look it up.)

Replacement: Cricket, I'd imagine. Though I'll have to learn the rules. And positions. And general reason for being.

2. Mexican food.

I'm told this is something that a lot of people miss when traveling to places like Europe and Australia. It's available over there, of course, but from what I gather, it pales in comparison. There is something uniquely satisfying about a big, fat burrito, and I'm not sure there's anything that will quite take its place.

Replacement: At least as far as spiciness is concerned, Indian food, the universal (well, the British universe, anyway) cap to a night of ... um ... going to the theatre.

3. The Obama presidency.

In retrospect, it's a little strange. I hung around for all eight Bush years, and four months after Obama took the oath, I'm leaving. And to a country that's about a year from voting in a Conservative government, at that. Of course, Conservative doesn't mean in Britain, or much of Europe, what it means here. Even the Tories would fall somewhere to the left of center in the American system.

Replacement: The unique joy of Prime Minister's Questions, though it's perhaps romanticized over here more than over there. There, it's seen as more farce than anything. Oh, and the inclusion of more than two political parties in the government, even if Labour and the Conservatives pretty much dominate the conversation.

4. Wide open spaces.

The Premier League soccer team I follow recently took its longest road trip of the year, and indeed the longest road trip by any team in the league (well, other than its opponent in the reverse fixture, of course), playing at Newcastle, a city in the Northeast of England. That trip covered 341 miles.

When I leave Grand Junction tomorrow, I will drive pretty much due east, and I will travel more than 400 miles before I reach the Kansas state line. In three days, I'll cover a little less than 1,700 miles.

There's simply no way to compare the vastness of the U.S. with the compact nature of what is, essentially, a fairly small island. And while England's lack of size doesn't translate to a deficit in cultural broadness, I'll miss the notion of being able to drive for three days and still be in the same country -- same, of course, being a relative term.

Replacement: The notion that there's nowhere in England that can't be reached in about a day's drive. Romanticizing notwithstanding, the size of this country is a bit inconvenient, isn't it?

5. My family.

Everyone all at once: Awwww. Well, I had to include them if I was gonna let them read it, didn't I? But this one comes with a caveat: For the past two years, I really haven't been that much farther from my parents than I will be in Britain.

That 1,700-mile drive will take me to my mother's house. If I were to fly, it would involve either an hour-long starter flight or a four-hour drive, followed by a flight of somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours. It would be about the same to get to my dad's house. In Britain, I'll be about a seven-hour flight away, so the only real difference is the five time zones that make the trip back an overnight flight.

Replacement: Well, nothing can replace parental love, of course (I'm good, aren't I?), but I will be much closer to a number of family members who've long been separated by that same seven-hour flight. I've got aunts and uncles and cousins to visit, including some I haven't seen in some 20 years. I'm excited about that.

Right, so tomorrow's the big day. Well, as big as a day that includes several hours of driving through Kansas can be, I guess.