June 23 - July 7, 2006 Marshall, N.C. - Washington, D.C. 12,339 miles to date 1,483 miles this leg Because we could, we routed our trip to Washington, D.C., for the Fourth of July. This was Jeff’s first visit to the nation’s capital; I had made many trips there while in college, but hadn’t visited since 1998. Our first encounter with the city core was after dark on the third of July; our hosts took us on a “lighted monument” tour that included the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the new World War [View Full Entry]

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June 4 - 22, 2006 Hot Springs, N.C. - Savannah, Ga. - Charleston, S.C. - Charlotte, N.C. Loop 10,856 miles to date 1,610 miles this leg NOTE: In addition to the updated Route Map, we've made revisions to the Proposed Route Map: for now, it includes Newfoundland! Four and a half months after leaving our Northwest home, we reached the Southeast apex of our round-the-country trip. We first saw the Atlantic on June 15 from the bridge to Tybee Island, Ga., where we sp [View Full Entry]

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May 18 - June 3, 2006 Biloxi, Miss. - Hendersonville, N.C. 9,246 miles to date 1,490 miles this leg Apologies for technical difficulties that delayed the posting of this entry... On May 18, Jeff and I celebrated our four-year wedding anniversary with a significant outing: we went sailing for the first time since leaving Port Townsend. Jeff later argued that it wasn’t really sailing because we didn’t actually set sail. I wonder that after four years of marriage, he doesn’t know better than not to argue with me! Our three-hour cruise on Biloxi Bay wa [View Full Entry]

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May 3 - May 17, 2006 Lake Providence, La. - Bay St. Louis, Miss. 7,756 miles to date 631 miles this leg Whew. We hardly know where to start. Nearly all of the last two weeks was spent in Hurricane Katrina’s destruction zone, and although nearly nine months have passed since this “storm of the century,” it’s mind-boggling to see for ourselves much more effort the recovery is going to take. As traveling eyewitnesses, we will attempt to describe here what you’re not necessarily hearing on the news every day, although the struggles are daily f [View Full Entry]

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April 18 - May 2, 2006 Leavenworth, Kan. - Lake Chicot, Ark. Mile 7,125 1,750 Miles this Leg Driving a 17-year-old vehicle around the country, we expected to have periodic mechanical troubles. And a few hours after the last blog posting, we had to tap into the “repairs” reserve in our trip budget. Matilda “gave us a start” when her starter failed! We had packed up on April 18 and left our relatives’ house near Leavenworth, Kan., to head toward southern Missouri. We stopped in the tongue-twister town of Osawatomie, Kan., to fill our propane tank a [View Full Entry]

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April 3 - 17, 2006 Cortez, Colo. - Leavenworth, Kan. Mile 5,375 1,541 Miles this Leg We are now balanced at the easternmost edge of Kansas, more than halfway across the continent from the coast we started on (see Route Map). Since leaving Port Townsend on Feb. 9, we have traveled more than 5,000 miles in nine weeks. Yet we have used up just a quarter of the time allotted for this road trip, and—one might hope—just a quarter of the adventures! This blog entry recounts our time in the Four Corners region of th [View Full Entry]

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March 21 - April 2, 2006 Palm Springs, Calif. - Canyon de Chelly, Ariz. Mile 3,834 On our trek into the southwest—destination Canyon de Chelly—we’ve been offered several different pronunciations of the famous Anasazi dwelling place. Upon arrival in the Navajo Nation, we received the definitive answer: it’s not Canyon de Shelly, but d’Shay, as in the French. I was a bit disappointed! Jeff and I began this chapter in California’s contradictory Coachella Valley, a seemingly arid desert in which thrives Palm Springs, with [View Full Entry]

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March 11 - 20, 2006 Monterey - Palm Springs, Calif. Mile 2,472 Prologue: Two months, nearly 2,500 miles, already a million memories. To see a visual representation of the trip thus far, click on the “route map” link at left. I will add these maps to the beginning of blog entries every so often, after an appreciable number of miles have accumulated. I have also created a map of our proposed route for the entire trip, which you can view here. Both maps* will be updated as we go along at the “sabbat [View Full Entry]

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February 27 - March 10, 2006 Ferndale - Santa Cruz, Calif. Mile 1,731 Forget what I said about “sunny California” in the last entry. It’s still winter here, and we’ve had our share of precipitation in the last 10 days, some of it frozen! In the high-elevation logging town of Redway, we were pelted with such high-velocity hail that I worried our new windshield would shatter; my umbrella blew inside out at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco; we got caught in a downpour on our bikes in Palo Alto and arrived at my aunt’s house complete [View Full Entry]

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February 17-26, 2006 Seaside, Ore. - Arcata, Calif. Mile 1,029 Greetings from sunny California! It sounds trite, but it really was warmer and we felt a mite more laid-back when we crossed the state line a few days ago. Writing from Arcata, Calif., I am happy to report that both of us are healthy again, that Matilda kept us warm on a string of below-freezing nights on the Oregon coast, and that shirtsleeves never felt so good. When we were starting this trip in Port Townsend more than a month (and more than 1,000 miles) ago, we would look up the [View Full Entry]

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