Where am I?

Car Date: 6/10/2006 Location: IP address=162.83.13.155 Where am I?
After escaping the gravitational pull of DC, our initial voyage out of DC landed us on the eastern shore where hotels were harder to find than expected and drunken teen warnings abounded. Still, it is great to start the journey.

Nearby

Car Date: 06/11/06 Location: IP address=206.59.32.10 Where am I?
It may have taken me longer than the other kids to save up for this but now that I am at this teenage destination, its purported fun still eludes me. Its frozen in time sister beach city had a bit more kitch appeal. And an endless bridge/tunnel and stop at the MacArthur museum made the journey more appealing than the destination. Sorry - no pictures...
Car Date: 06/12/06 Location: IP address=12.160.78.165,24.159.160.70
A return to this popular escape for DC residents (and locale for their summer homes) had us dining with our former DC neighbors under an ominous sky. But the delicious hush puppies, local dinner and burger joints, and dunes had us pay no mind to the weather.
Car Date: 06/13/06 Location: IP address=71.16.229.3
Not much to say here other than .Go UNC.. Dark dreary coastal suburb with restaurant and retail chains and adult entertainment. Most exciting thing was the possibility of a hurricane. Onward...
Car Date: 06/14/06 Location: IP address=199.72.223.154 Where am I?
Although described as a clean New Orleans, without the oppressive heat, this home to the start of the "war between the states" could be quite a social scene as a beautiful old port city and well to do homes against lovely evenings skies. Dont know what economically supports such a city and how anyone can live through such heat though. Told its the 3rd most used port on the east coast.
Car Date: 06/15/06 Location: IP address=68.213.33.184
After we left the starting point of the .war between the states., our minds were temporarily taken away from the oppressive heat of the South as we were chilled by stories of Gracie's ghost and awed by what looked like whole buildings move by as container ships (that we could almost touch) pass through this 4th most popular small town port on the east coast. Very friendly (even to northerners) and very nice.

My my what a hi-tek laundermat

Car Date: 06/16/06 Location: IP address=66.56.7.129
As we approached this large hub city of the south, it was nice to stop by towns where everyone from the checker at the Bi-Low to the post office employee knew where the one photocopier in town was. Oh yes, and copies were free.
Car Date: 06/17/06 Location: IP address=66.32.235.66
Thanks to some very accommodating friends, spent a few days down here near Harry.s supermarket (and Alton Brown.s home) experiencing the southern suburban life. Maybe when I grow up, I will live like this.

Yes - the beak and eyes move

Car Date: 06/18-21/06 Location: IP address=70.21.35.248,216.15.123.171
6/18 . Crash at a hotel near one of the most inefficient hub airports I have seen (and its expanding!!) before a little business in DC and Boston. 6/19 - DC (IP=70.21.35.248), 6/20-21 - BOS (IP=12.15.173.34, 216.15.123.171) Back home(s) again. Familiar faces and places.

My old Chinatown startup space across from NYNEX. One of my old hang outs. Some places never die. The Muddy. Still the cheapest beer in town. Hic.. The City. At this rate I think I will drive cross country ;-)

Car Date: 06/22/06 Location: IP address=72.151.126.191
Flew back to our southern departure point. It is too #$%$^@ hot for our AC to not work down here. Certainly it must be easy to find the right part for the AC in this suburban auto-part haven . not. Oh well, if we can.t fix the AC in a day, we will drive to someplace cooler in a day.

Car Date: 06/23/06 Location: IP address=24.158.185.122
On very good advice from an unnamed State Dept official, we sought and found cool in the hills of Tennessee (and sophistication near the University of the South). An excellent restaurant experience, a good night.s sleep and a pleasant hike the next day topped off the visit.

Gas, fireworks and cold beer (boom-boom) - a common mixture around here (and all I could ever need or want). Cool breezes and a cross overlooking the valley. End of the trail. Very cool - an ice-o-matic.

Car Date: 06/24/06 Location: IP address=none
A trip through the hometown of the source of an all American elixir treated us to wonderful smells, a town fair but no tastings or product much like the trees around the plant. Only the tree-moss, not the tree, gets to grow voraciously from the product (CO2 exhaust) of the stills. Still worth the trip. No trip through the south would be complete w/o a visit to this music mecca, however the World Cup seemed to be on the tele in many a bar. Beautifully restored downtown and majestic walking bridge over the Cumberland river. Crashed a little out of town along a recently opened and deserted highway (Interstate 580).

Smells wonderful and easy to make. But it is illegal to buy any in this town. Laurie Partridge not really playing the piano. The mighty Cumberland That church-like building is Bell South. A temple to (temporary) telecom profits?

Car Date: 06/25/06 Location: IP address=24.123.199.146
If the last city preserved the décor (and grime) of an old music industry, this city seems to be frozen in the 1960-70’s. As if prepared to re-launch itself from a long economic sleep the downtown of this 4th best place to retire (according to Newsweek) gave us beautiful views of the Mississippi from inexpensive midtown accommodations accompanied by reasonable summer temperatures and quaint trolley car transportation along waterfront walkways, luxury bluff-top homes, outdoor markets, and the artsy-entrepreneurial startups that are often the harbingers of economic recovery. Though I expect to see a very different city in a few years, I hope it finds a way to hang on to its unique southern style.

The view. Eve along the river. Preservation of the old. Some of the new. and how to get between the two. A well known haunt.

Car Date: 06/26/06 Location: IP address=24.123.199.146
Attempts to betray the lemming components of my DNA and escape the power of Elvis were fruitless as was the expensive multi-hour wait and tour. However there was some comfort to find suspended in the 70's (at the time of his death) familiar shag carpeting and top-of the line appliances of the time (RCA XL-100, Tappan kitchen, etc). This experience acted like a sling shot hurtling us northward. At the gateway to Fort Defiance on the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, beautifully bridging Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri, we stumbled on what looked like a living movie set, but the shops and businesses were not facades - they were real and suffering from apparently unavoidable neglect and continuing decay. The archway announcing entry into its historic districts seems like some sort of bad joke until I learned after some research that they were serious. Somewhere between western ghostown and slum. Although I don't believe its residents ever give it a second thought, there is something mysterious about a place that defiantly remains afloat with visibly no means of economic support and that maintains a connection to a namesake in Egypt. Though I wanted to stay, my fellow traveler was in search of safer climes. A lot of history here...I will be back. Got late and ended up staying near an Army Corp of Engineers project turned fishing/hunting/golf resort - all manmade, oddly out of place but a good place for a meal.

Entry to the past. Btw: you pass through a town called Future City just before this. Really! As if calling it that would somehow entice a developer to plan a "future city" there. Fat chance. Continued indications of distant dreams. An old pic of town. Remove the cars and dilapidate the buildings for a current view. The resort's watertower. Where the #$@@ am I? Dinner. Desert. Why are nightime shots so grainy on a CCD based camera?

Car Date: 06/29/06 Location: IP address=71.205.216.240
A walk to a sunset over the lake, the dunes, and the new pool all to ourselves made the cinder block jail cell of a motel one of the best places we have stayed and far better than the hoity-toity bed and breakfast's along the lake. But signs like "God is like Coke - he is the real thing" kept us on our toes.

Solitude on the dunes and civilization a little north. Roadside "attractions" along the way

Car Date: 07/22/06 Location: IP address=24.111.59.106
Although the accordion museum was in reach and images of babe the blue ox fresh in our memory (that was yesterday), we cut short the drive through Laurence Welk.s homeland thanks to info from a White House advisor.who said the best way to see this state was at 75MPH (Yee Ha!) from the interstate. The only .taste of ?. is exhibited below next to the unfortunately named gas stop. Where am I?

food? whats in a name.

Car Date: 07/25/06 Location: IP address=24.230.34.128 Where am I?
Zoom Zoom Zoom. People never get tired of jets and rockets. I suppose as the possibility of base closures loom, one has to do what one has to do. Tours of a Minuteman II missile silo /w inactive missile and the continual landing of B-1 bombers amidst the sheer excitement of viewing painted plaster dinosaurs made the 100 degree heat bearable.

Kinda looks like a pterodactyl? Minuteman II cover

Car Date: 07/26/06 Location: IP address=24.230.34.128
Continuing on presidential advice through this presidential neighborhood yet avoiding the presidential "largeness" of the previous day we found cool temperatures at a higher plane after a long hike while humming Rocky Racoon. A must do. Where am I?

Top of the middle ... my favorite food. mica. local communication facilities.

Car Date: 7/27/2006 Location: IP address=207.94.24.233 Where am I?
ests of our high altitude stamina were rewarded with beautiful views and cool winds in this ultra convenient hiking Mecca where everyone from die hard backcountry campers to makeup laden day hikers are shuttled to and from trailheads and smoke free bars via a free bus system. Of course convenience comes at a price - relatively expensive hotels.

views from 14,000+ feet ... ...

Car Date: 7/29-30/2006 Location: IP address=NONE
The sheer magnificence of the tallest sand dunes in the US and a friendly gun-toting (grr) female park ranger from Silver Spring made our first camping experience on the trip a good one. The sound and sight of distant thunder and lightning only added to the already other worldly sense during an evening stroll through the dunes and tested our mettle as campers (we hid in the car).

pictures can't capture the feeling too well

Car Date: 08/10-11/06 Location: IP address=none
Felt the trade off for flush toilets for primitive camping was justified given the complete solitude we were graced with for 2 moon filled nights at a relatively new, but remote, National park (tent-less one night showered only by stars from the Perseid meteor display). Armed with advanced satellite technology provided by a State Dept official we found a spot. A strenuous steep hike was rewarded with nice views and an isolated alpine lake which only one of us was brave enough to embrace as a bathing opportunity . didn.t know it could get smaller. Neophyte campers like us ran out of water (but not wine), but a cool creek running by our campsite gave us an ample source for all but drinking water. Where am I?

View in the surrounding park (not really worth a visit on its own) What we saw each morn and each eve. Reward at the end of the trail (~10K ft), but brrrr..., it was ....... cold! Camp Evening moon rise