I can feel it in the air, the summer's out of reach

This narrative is starting to look like a fall season premiere on the Fox Network, October 23 and I am finally getting around to starting again. To start with, I am hanging out about 10 miles South of Moab UT. This place is amazing. But I'll write about that in a few months when I get caught up....

...our intrepid traveler had just spent 2 days at Devil's Tower in Wyoming, and was heading to Billings to see an old family friend (this took place in the first week of August). We skip ahead to the riveting tale of my 3 day driving extravaganza from Lake Tahoe to Baltimore MD in the latter half of the week of September 11. In an earlier edition, I paid homage to the mid-90's avant-garde of American film direction with clever use of non-linear plot development. We will now again push the envelope and go to parallel story development, wherein I will pick up the story back on the East coast in mid-September, and also (at some point) finish the story of my first trip out West.

After arriving home from my 3 day insanely long drive, I didn't do much the first few days other than sleep, eat, and work out. The next weekend I went to Richmond, at which point it became sleep, eat, and drink beer (not necessarily in that order). Upon my return to my parents house, I realized that two things. That being back out East was stressful, and that it was too easy to sit around and do nothing. So I changed my plans a little, and decided to leave Maryland a little early, head to Richmond for one more weekend, and then head out from there. So I spent the second week doing some maintenance to the bus, and weeding out stuff I didn't need, as well as adding additional cargo (Snowboard!!).

Overall it was a great trip back, seeing friends and family was a much needed emotional battery recharge, and driving on I-95 was a reminder of why I am out here. After my second weekend in Richmond, I headed out on October 1 to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Rockingham NC. We had a great time eating good food, listening to music (and burning CD's), drinking beer, celebrating my Birthday, and just sitting around talking. Here is a couple of pictures of their bulldogs...

After a few days it was time to go, and I headed out with plans to go to the NC highpoint and the Tennessee highpoint in one day. Those plans were quickly dashed when I realized the hard way that there are TWO places in North Carolina called Mount Mitchell. As I got close to the FIRST Mount Mitchell, I started to realize that the scenery was awfully low to be the highest point East of the Mississippi. Sure enough, a studious check of the map verified that I was in the wrong place. Fortunately I had been traveling in mostly the right direction, so I only ended up losing an hour or two. Much later that afternoon I finally turned of onto the Blue Ridge Parkway...

The cool air and the color of the leaves on the trees was an undeniable reminder that summer was ending. As were my plans to get to the Tennessee highpoint. I headed off, with some hope that I might make it before sunset, and immediately hit a traffic jam on the highway that took about 2 hours to get through. All was not lost, as I found the location of Batman's secret lair...

My destinations in Memphis and Missouri held more appeal than hanging out until the next day to bag the highpoint, so I headed off to spend the night in Knoxville. It was in this stretch of road that an alarming change in the radio took place (and which would not improve until Denver). It seems that the listening public in those parts only has an appetite for country music and freaky religious programming. I'm not talking old school good country music, strictly the bubblegum junk, with lyrics far more banal than any Britney Spears song. Thankfully I had some newly minted CD's from my Uncle's collection to preserve my sanity.

P.S. The answer to the last trivia question is Reykjavik Iceland. This weeks question: Whose assassination is credited as being the official starting point for World War I?