Second Stop

Thursday, May 28-Memphis, Tennessee. After a ride through the quiet, rural areas of Alabama, and Mississippi, we fetched up in Memphis to meet our hosts, Barbara and Larry Cannon.

In one of those coincidences that serve to demonstrate that the world is a very small place, Larry and Barbara discovered that they were both born in Bingamton, NY and that they had much of that area's geography and history in common. Larry, an Army veteran, and his lady have spent many happy times in various parts of the world, as they have been able to take advantage of the low cost option of US military air transport to various countries. We spent a very pleasant evening with them, telling stories of our travels and travails, and after a wonderful breakfast on Friday morning we took our leave and drove across the Mississippi, and into Arkansas. Barbara managed to get a pretty good picture of the point on the bridge where we crossed into Arkansas from Tennessee, and even though we were traveling at 60 mph the through the windshield focus came worked very well.

First Evergreen Stay

Wednesday-May 27-Montgomery, Alabama. We spent the night with Hart & Leona Stemple. They were gracious hosts and their home is filled with antique Asian artifacts from their time in Korea and other Asian cities. We spent a couple of hours prior to our arrival sightseeing in the areas around the main government complex & at the historic courthouse, where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the first President of the new Confederacy. At breakfast on Thursday morning we ate a scrumptious meal in the formal dining room and afterwards reluctantly took our leave of our hosts and headed for our next stop in Memphis, Tennessee.

Day One

On day one we have driven from Amelia Island to Montgomery, Alabama. We saw much of the rural landscape of south central Georgia, along with the beautifully preserved main street of Eufaula, Alabama--antebellum if ever there was antebellum. The weather was warm and clear and mid 80's. After dinner at Schlotzsky's deli on the strip we are off to meet our hosts Mr. & Mrs. Stemple.

Kitty in the basket

In the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the preparations for the trip we happened to look down and saw this image of Max the cat in his basket. This is the personification of calm in the midst of the storm. Talk about oblivious! We must try to remember that from time to time we need to emulate this serenity.

One week to departure

As we reach the last week prior to departure the filled in portions of the check lists are growing. With the arrival in the e-mail today of a warm confirmation note from Richard & Barbara
Kohlhaas in Colorado Springs, our overnight plans and confirmations for the trip are complete.

Richard and Barbara live in a co-housing community, http://www.casaverde.us/ and they very kindly invited us to dinner on our first night as their entire community enjoys one of their frequent community dinners. We are familiar with the co-housing concept since there is one in Ithaca, New York, known as Eco-Village, and several of my academic colleagues at Cornell called it home.

New Camera

We will also be taking along on the trip a camera that we bought last year but have barely used. This a mini digital still and video camera-an AIPTEK- which is built along the lines of the better known "Flip" cameras which are now being used by many folks to capure and email both still photos & short video clips, and also to post them on social networking sites lke FaceBook and MySpace. We will use it to post short clips on this site.

Getting ready

We are putting together the final list of things that must be done prior to our departure on May 27. Somehow, it seems the list gets longer with each passing day, as we remember yet another detail that must be taken care of.

We did make some change in technology, and purchased a digital card reader so that we can more easily capture the photographs from our Kodak digital camera without using Kodak's proprietary software, Easy Share, which is truly frustratingly limited and clunky, and often drops photos while uploading from the camera to our computer. The result will be much easier uploads results to this blog and fewer "lost" photographs.

We will be taking along Barbara's new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite model, that has proven to be a great help. With its WiFi card in place we should be able to find lots of good signal nodes to pull up the Internet and our e-mail while we are on the road.

I had quite a discussion with Dave, our auto mechanic at Island Auto Care, about whether to equip the car with an inverter to carry the extra electrical load for charging and running cellular phones, the GPS unit, and the laptop. In the end we decided to go with a three headed multiple outlet which plugs into the cigarette lighter, and as long as we are careful not to overload demand draw from the electrical system, we should be OK to charge one unit at a time while running on the road.

Some changes along the way.

After some back & forth with some very nice folks in Edgewood, New Mexico, we were unable to make arrangements to stay with any of them in that locale. However, we must definitely say thanks for the great efforts by the Bacca's, the Phillips, and the Fongs in that city.

Accordingly we shifted destination slightly, and our hosts in Albuquerque, Bob & Donna Benson, were kind enough to arrange for us to stay for two extra nights. Hooray for their kindness and courtesy.

So now, with the exception of Moab, Utah, the town closest to the Arches National Park, where we will take our chances on availability for commercial spaces when we arrive there, all other stops on the way to our turn around point in Boulder, Colorado, are filled in with Evergreen Club friends.

Also, on the return trip, we are awaiting confirmation from some folks in Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Louis, Missouri, but all other stops are now confirmed. We have decided to spend part of the July 4th weekend in the mountain house, (just above Marion, NC), of our friends the McBrearty's where we have happily stayed before. We will probable drive home from there on Saturday, July 04, but that will depend on how well rested we are after the long trip.

New confirmations

With the exception of Stop # 8 in Edgewood, New Mexico, all our Evergreen member stay overs leading up to our arrival for the Basho and Amanda wedding in Boulder, are now confirmed. Again we are just in awe of the friendly and courteous responses that we have had to our e-mails and telephone calls, and it is clear that we are going to meet some wonderful & very interesting folks on this trip.

We are now working on dates and locales for the return portion of the trip, which will include stops in South Dakota, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina.

New stops confirmed-Some still awaiting confirmation

The last few days have seen a flurry of e-mails and telephone calls to various members of the Evergreen Club around the US.

Stops # 2 in Memphis, # 5 in Council Grove Kansas, # 6 in Garden City, Kansas, # 9 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, # 11, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and # 12 in St. George, Utah, are all confirmed.

Stops # 4, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, # 7 in Taos, New Mexico, #8 in Santa Fe, and # 10, in Williams Arizona, are still pending confirmation by Evergreen Club members.

It is truly inspiring to hear from Evergreen members, (even those who have been unable to host us), as each and every one has been quick to respond, and polite to a fault. One lady we spoke to was on vacation in another state, and still was able to confirm our stay at her home.

Stop # 3-Arkansas

Stop # 3, on May 29 & 30, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas has been confirmed. Sally Wimberly wrote us a very warm and charming note confirming our stay for two nights, and giving us a long distance introduction to their Shelti dog, and what she described as a "...grumpy 16 year old cat." When responding, I noted that we too, had a cat and a dog, which we were leaving at home, and thus we certainly understood the domain needs of domestic pets.

Sally also noted that they have an 80 acre farm outside Eureka Springs, and since we too used to live on a farm in the New York State Finger Lakes region, we are looking forward to a seeing theirs during our stay.

First stop confirmed

Today we received a gracious confirmatory note from Hart & Leona Stemple, of Montgomery. Alabama where we will make the first stop on our summer trip. They note, that having lived in Asia, they follow the custom of removing shoes at their entrance door.