Louisville

This was my last stop on my trip. Or should I say hopefully my last stop. I've returned to the Eastern Standard Time zone and am a matter of miles from the Indiana border.
Last night was spend catching with my dear friend Jared. We've known each other since high school. We have one of the friendships that allow us to pick up from where we left off last time we saw each other. It's been at least 4 years since I've seen him, but it felt like we saw each other last week. I'm so lucky to have these types of relationships in my life.
As for the trip, it's time to be home. I've been gone for 26 days now and am ready to "be still" for a little while.


- Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

A great night in Oxford

First things first...the car drove fine today. So I'm hoping whatever was wrong with it was fixed with the fuel filter. On my drive today, I went over a 17.2 mile bridge that spans a huge swamp in LA. from what I can tell from the info folks have told me, it took about 15 years to complete. Something like 35-38 workers died during the construction. Most of them died as a result of water moccasin bites. Luckily, I didn't see any of those on this trip.

Once I turned north for a little while, the scenery started to look a lot more "home-like." I drive through a lot of forest with rolling hills, tall pines and oaks, etc. I made it to Oxford and had a chance to drive around the campus of the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss. It's a pretty campus with a lot old-growth trees, southern influenced buildings, etc. The best part was seeing the Greenes. I haven't seen them a while and it was such a treat. We had a great dinner at Proud Larry's, saw the work being done o their new house, and met some folks from Allen's office. Also, it was a lot of fun to play with the kids. I think they were happy to see a person from South Bend.

Oxford strikes me a town Charmelle and I should come back to and hang out in a little bit. It has a fun vibe and I think we would have a lot of fun hanging out at the Square. Not to mention, visiting our friends!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.
Please excuse the typos.

Last major directional change

This trip has really been divided into 4 parts and I've just begun the last part. It started with days of driving west, then south, then east. I've just turned north on I55 and will basically continue north until I reach South Bend. I'm less than 1,000 moles from home. That is a comforting thought. I'm looking forward to seeing Charmelle and our home and friends.


- Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

Location:Alligator Dr,Hammond,United States

A short adventure...hopefully

After a great visit with everyone in San Antonio last night, I was up and out at 5:15 a.m. This morning to head to Duson, LA to the Wortmans. I had to leave extra early because I was dropping some stuff off in Huston for Jo. The Huston meet went fine and it was looking like I would be having lunch with David and Emily.
However, as I was driving on I10, suddenly my VUE slowed down and lights on the dash started coming one: reduced power and service engine soon! I was near an exit and took it. It led me to Orange TX. I stopped at one service place, but they weren't really interested in helping me. The focused mostly on semi trucks, but advertised auto service too. So I went out and the car started back up, but the lights were still on. So I looked on my GPS for a nearby service station and headed that way.
I found the service station, but they couldn't even look at it until Monday, the called the station behind them and that station could look at it. So over I went. Dean's Service was just around the corner and they were really nice. They checked the codes, took it for a drive and were pretty sure it was the fuel filter. Luckily they found one in tow and had it sent over. While we waited, I chatted with Dean and Linny. Both we really nice guys. Linny was an 88-year-old WWII vet that used to play in a country swing band. They had a lot of good stories and jokes and it made the time pass pretty quickly. Of course the humidity was crazy and that sort of slowed time down. The part arrived and was installed. After a test drive, the service engine light was still on, so they suggested I go to the Chevy dealer in town and let them look at it.
So I paid the bill and headed to the Chevy dealer. Their service department said they couldn't work on my Saturn and suggested I head back into TX and go to one of the remaining Saturn dealers. So I went back out to my car and piled it out of the parking area to think all of this over, and all the warning lights we off. So I called Dean and said, "I'd keep drivin." So I did. I w about 90 miles from Duson and figured Lake Charles was on the way they had some repair places if needed and that would at least put me closer to Duson.
The car ran fine with no warning lights or problems. Then I pulled off of I10 to get to David and Emily's and the lights came back on? I got to their house and just chatted and enjoyed a glass of iced tea while we figured out what to do. David took me to his mechanic and they checked for codes again. The car drove fine to the garage, but the "service engine soon" light was still on. The code looks to be an air sensor error and Scott, the mechanic, said it was fine and I can get back to IN. David trusts him and says he is quite conservative with things like this, so I should be fine. I'm heading to Oxford, MS tomorrow, so I'll have 425 miles to find out.
Beyond the car issues, things are great. I so love visiting with Wortmans. It's always a great time and I'm sad t be on the road after only a day.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.
Please excuse the typos.

Small world

According to my Satirn VUE, it's time for another oil change. So I've stopped off in Kerrville TX for a short break and oil change.
As they ate checking my car in, the guys asks where I'm from and upon my answer tells me he is from Columbus IN. What a small world. He was excited about the new era of Irish football and talked about it for a while.
Once the oil change is done, I'll head the ahort distance to San Antonio.


- Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

Officially turning East

After a GREAT visit in Tucson, it's time to turn east. I'm sitting here looking at the mountains enjoying a breakfast burrito and coffee before hitting the road.
It's a small world. As I sit here, I notice the guy next to me has an ND tattoo. So of course we chat for a little while about South Bend and the Irish.


- Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

Vegas baby

It was hard to leave Tahoe, but every vacation must come to an end. Of course, this vacation isn't ending just yet.

We're on our way to Sedona AZ. So today we drove to Vegas. We'll get up early tomorrow and drive the remaining 5 or so hours to Sedona.

Right now we're waiting for a take-out from IHOP. It's right in front of the hotel, so 24 hours and easy win out. Food then some sleep.



- Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

More Driving!

Today I set out from Jackson Hole to head toward Lake Tahoe. I took a leisurely approach today. I slept in a bit, did a little work and then got on the road. The first bit of excitement was heading over Teton Pass. I have never driven over a 10% grade pass. It was steep, but beautiful. Had there not been a big construction section, I would have stopped for photos.

When I made it to the other side, I called Randy to tell him about the fun of my drive over the pass. He then gave me directions to take a little side trip to his Idaho house. What a great treat. Here is the view of the valley from the deck. What a wonderful place.

From there I headed through Grand Targee Forest and Swan Valley. This was a beautiful drive. I have to admit I was surprised how much I liked this area of Idaho. I really enjoyed it.

Of course, after this wonderful drive, I was blessed with many hours of boring driving. From Idaho Falls and beyond it really reminded me of southern New Mexico. Not much to see and mountains off in the distance. In any event, I'm in Elko, NV for the night. I've enjoyed some great pizza and now it's time for some sleep. I'll be in Incline Village tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to seeing Charmelle and Bruce and Susan.

Day 2... More driving

So another 650 miles in and I've made it to Jackson Hole WY. Driving through the remainder of Nebraska and into Wyoming went by pretty quickly. Of course, then it did rain a bit, but nothing too much.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.

Please excuse the typos. 

Audiobooks are my copilot

While I LOVE music and have a lot of it on my iPhone, I'm really enjoying the audiobooks I brought on the trip.

The St. Joe Public Library has a pretty big selection of audiobooks. They will load up to 5 books on your iPod for 21 days, or even longer if you ask nicely.

So far on my drive, I've enjoyed a mix of silence, NPR, music, and books. I've already finished "Master Your Metabolism." Charm is reading it right now and I wanted to read it as well. The audio version was great. I'm guessing we will be making a few changes when we get home. Honestly, we do a pretty good job, we just need to workout more regularly and not eat at late in the evening.

I'm about half way through "What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis. This is a really interesting book about society, technology, and economics. My geek-parts really like this book, but it is far less geeky than you would think from the title. It really makes you think about how we used to do things in business and even education compared to the new models of doing things brought to us by Google, eBay, CraigsList, and Amazon. Blogs and wikis are powerful tools and our customers can really help us improve, if we let them.


The photos in this post is from the walking path at the rest area just over the border into Wyoming.

-Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

Day 1

It was a nice day for driving. I left the house at 5:15 a.m. and headed west. Overall, this was a pretty uneventful day. Nothing too interesting...which is a good thing. The basic stats are, I covered 842 miles in about 14 hours. Tonight I'm in North Platte Nebraska for the night. I'm planning to get up in the morning and hit it again. I'm planning to get to Jackson Hole tomorrow. So I will be traveling about 650 miles.

Thoughts on Iowa

As I'm driving through Iowa I have a mix of happy and sad memories. It seems that I've driven I80 through Iowa a number of times in recent years. As I pasted through the Iowa City area I couldn't help missing NiiJii. It was in the Marengo/Iowa City stretch of RAGBRAi 2006 I found out NiiJ wasn't doing well those were some tough days. They have definitely overshadowed the great memories of my first RAGBRAI with Bruce. That led me to think of my second RAGBRAI with the guys. Great memories (overall...). With a bit of sadness in my mind, I hear Dave Hendrix in my head saying "man up!" RAGBRAI always makes me miss him.

Of course, Dave and Lynn are pedaling somewhere in Iowa right now and I'm sure they are having a great time. So I need to focus on the laughs, look at the "rolling" hills and keep on driving. Iowa is a really pretty stre with some of the nicest folks you'd every want to meet.


- Posted from my iPhone please excuse the typos.

Location:S 7th St,Stuart,United States