Well I have attempted to read along but this has been a month filled with all kind of demands - from health to family, friends and two very challenging sellers or rather I should say they are in reaction to very challenging problems with the property they want to sell.
Interesting, the first two weeks of reading was like old home week for me - I lived in Lexington Kentucky for 12 years. During those years I was very active as a trainer for the Girl Scouts and so it was usual to travel deep into those mountains as well as west towards Louisville. Wakefield had just opened up part of the the old Science Hill Inn in Shelbyville while the two sisters were still very much at home often coming out on the lawn to chat. Had not dipped down too much into Tennessee but the conversations he had on his way to Nameless were the sounds and attitudes familiar to me - We left the area for Texas in 1966 where as, he was taking is Blue Highway trip in the early 70s so there was still much the same as in my memory bank
Then my daughter lives in western North Carolina for the past dozen years or so, and a few times I would take a slow trip up to Oxford Miss and across coming east towards Hendersonville by way of Nantahala forest, through Franklin where since those trips Steph has her summer home. Then my sister lives on the Outer Banks in Corolla, which is a few miles north of Kitty Hawk and both further north than Roanoke - Then of course coming home from my daughter's through Montgomery south to Mobile and across to Houston I made my pilgrimage to St. Martinville where the tree and statue for Evangeline is 'the feature' along with the church that is in the Longfellow story. The drive south from I10 which he probably took 95 since I10 was not yet built, you finally get there over very bumpy almost unpaved roads.
Then Dime Box is on the way to Bryan, College Station where my youngest lived for 9 years - mostly Czech country with some Bohemian who all still converse among themselves in their historical language - and of course many a trip over the Fredricksburg where with all the tourist trade that has taken over, stopping at the bakery early in the morning you will hear folks still conversing in German. Back in the 70s the classes in the elementary school was all in German.
Had my share of trips to El Paso when my youngest lived there for 3 years - for me the trip over stopping always at Fort Stockton for a coffee break is one of the most dramatic and glorious landscapes I have ever seen. Then from El Paso onward into New Mexico up 25 to Albuquerque and many points in between, north to Santa Fe and on to Taos and west to El Prado where my eldest son lived, several of the reservations have a sorta town center but you often see children being left in the fields over night while the parents go into a nearby town for a dancing and yes, too much to drink - We took many a trip into eastern New Mexico often coming in at Hobbs or Clovis or Dimmit on up to I40 - Been to Carlsbad as well as most of the eastern part of New Mexico along the north into Arizona, for the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon, loved Williams, west of Flagstaff and, of all the reservations the Hopi is one of my favorites.
Then he finally drives through a part of the country I have not seen till he gets to Oregon where again, my youngest son lived for 3 years and I would visit 4 times a year so that we visited and hiked Mt. Hood and spent time on the beaches near Seaside - earlier when my children were younger and still in school I was a national trainer for thel Girl Scouts and with another trainer from Idaho we spent a month and a half in Canada having a couple of days in Seattle then were driven north, we took a huge ferry to Victoria where we spent a day at a wonderful museum filled with native Indian artifact, then driven north to Nanaimo where we over-nighted then across to Vancouver. Later during our stay we were driven into the Northern Rockies for a couple of days.
All that bit where he drives across the northern Rockies and the Northern Plains I have not visited so that will be new for me until we get to Detroit than I am back into Northern Ohio and on into New York and it looks like the Mohawk Valley which I am remembering from my childhood - my father always wanted to hike the Mohawk trail - something about a book he read when he was a kid in the hospital after falling off a roof and breaking a leg - but he never did achieve that dream however, we drove across touching on the 1000 lake area.
Interesting how we all conserve our dollars on a road trip and unless it was a Sunday drive and even then we most often brought our own picnic. While on a long distance drive I always bring my own with a stop here and there at a Grocery store or a place where I can fill my coffee cup. I mostly overnight in a B&B - feels safer and I like the homelike atmosphere - have stayed at some motels when I traveled with others but they were seldom as curious as I was about the history of a town. I am a sucker for some little out of the way small museum that is often in a preserved cabin and in towns, there has to be a stop at their local bookstore if there is one. Best bookstore in Oxford Miss. right on the square.
I will try to catch up over this weekend especially since it appears he is driving through areas I have never visited so that i can join you on the road - still busy but a little less so and finally, although rattling at night and coughing from time to time I am breathing with no undo effort...wheee. Been a long winter...
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