Surprise post!

The dogs and I are in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in Columbia, MO (N 38º57'39.8" x W092º17'12.8") and were able to get online - we weren't last night - so here's last night's post. And we're moving on; it's only 2:30 CST and we've only gone 293 miles today. So here's the post, and I don't know when the next one will be. So let me put this up while we still have a signal. Theh trip's going great. Talk with you soon,

Jay

PS Ruth! Send that picture! I'll put the other one up when I connect my PC to my camera. See ya.

=======

February 2, 2006

If the rest of the days are HALF as good as the first one…

…this is just going to be an outstanding trip. Wednesday night before I left, Skye and Betsy and John had me over and fixed me an incredible going-away meal, and Skye and Betsy gave me a wonderful gift – they’re so thoughtful! Then I got home and my old friend Holly called and I had a great conversation with her, then finished packing and went to bed. I got up at 4:00 this morning and had a big breakfast and when I went to throw a few last items in the car, there was a great note from my friend Charles under my windshield wiper! So I’m already thinking what a great sendoff I’m getting and I load the dogs up and we head down to “our” Starbucks. We arrive about a minute before six a.m. in the pitch dark and freezing cold and my old friend Cris shows up! So we’re just sitting down for a cup of coffee and my river walking friends (who never arrive at Pony Pasture with anything less than five dogs) show up too! This is just too, too much fun. So finally we hit the road and pull out of the driveway at Starbucks at 6:30 on the dot. The dogs – mainly Ivory, of course – politely asked me to stop a couple of times on 64 on the way out of town and when we made a stop on a mountain top in West Virginia we talked to the first people on the trip, a couple from Ontario. Canadians first thing – who would have guessed? We had a great talk with them and they loved the dogs and of course the dogs couldn’t get enough of them.

So after a while we called our old friend Ruth, who I have been in a little bit of email contact with over the last year or so. But the last time I saw her was when my family lived on Braddock Road in Silver Spring, MD and her family lived next door. And that was in the late sixties or early seventies! So we hadn’t seen each other in thirty five years and now she’s teaching photography at UK in Lexington, KY and she saw she’d be right on our route and graciously invited us to stop in for a late lunch or early dinner. Lexington was around 500 miles from home and her dog Kenna was very considerate and allowed Ivory and Nicky to stretch their legs in the backyard while Ruth and I went out for dinner. While I was driving Ruth back to pick up her car, she was programming a shortcut out of town into my GPS! You don’t get service like that just anywhere you go.

Tonight we stayed at the Motel 6 in Evansville, IN – 4321 Highway 41 N, Evansville, IN, 47711, to be precise. To be even more precise, N38º 01’ 04.2” x W087º 32’ 16.7”. A little bit north of home and a lot west. We’re also in the central time zone. The mileage was 112,444 when we arrived. And I know we arrived precisely at 8:42 PM Central (9:42 PM Eastern) because that’s the time it says on my cell phone when it rang the second I was pulling into my parking space when my friend Andrew called! Perfect timing!

The desk clerk asked what kind of dog I had and I told her it was a Husky. She told me she’s had a lot of experience with Huskies – she lived in the Northwest Territories in Canada from 1975 to 1978! I don’t know if any of you recall the geography I’ve talked about regarding this trip. Key West at 24º, Richmond at 37 º, Whitehorse at around 60 º or 61 º. She lived at 78 º for three years! Wow. What are the odds of going on a driving trip from Virginia to Canada and the first people I talk to when I leave VA are from Ontario and the last person I talk to before I stop for the night lived in the Northwest Territories. Crazy.

Anyway, the dogs have been outstanding travelers and they’re ready to go to sleep – and so am I!