endoflogic

Sorry for the delay - conversation and bourbon conspired for a missed blog post last night. Today was great for two reasons. Reason #1 was the sites we got to see, which were amazing. Reason #2 was I didn't have to drive - a first since Illinois. With the side trip down to Abilene, we've done 2,700 miles already on this trip and I've driven every one of them, so the opportunity to just sit back and look at the sites was definitely appreciated. We piled into Ron's car around 9am and headed out into the desert, driving the Oatman Highway - an incredible, twisting/turning road through the mountains and over the Sitgreaves Pass. A few miles on you pull into the town of Oatman, one of the strangest places I've ever seen. The town itself ... read more

1,000 Cool-Kid Points to anyone that gets the reference in the top picture before they read the Blog Post. Today was a long day; long in miles and long in time. Yesterday, you see we crossed over to from Texas to New Mexico, meaning we went from Central Time to Mountain Time. Set aside for a moment how entirely ridiculous it is that West Texas should be in the same time zone as Eastern Illinois. The two places are only 1,100 miles apart, after all. In Springfield ILL, by 6am the sun was well over the horizon. In Amarillo TX, it's pitch black at 6am. Add in that today we crossed from New Mexico to Arizona, a peculiar little state in that aside from being the only one of the 50 that doesn't recognize MLK Day ... read more

Today was a little bit of a diversion, and one I'm completely thrilled to have taken. Last night, while typing up yesterday's version of this blog, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to do something precipitous. Change the game up a little bit and do the unexpected. Sitting as I was in Elk City, Oklahoma I happened to notice that Abilene Texas was only about 250 miles due south. Kennedy and I had originally planned to push all the way through Texas today and get partway to Albuquerque before stopping for the night, but I suddenly had something very important to do in Texas. There's a lady living in Abilene who has been one of the dearest friends my wife Eileen, our good friend Dana Robinson and I have had for the last fifteen years. ... read more

Turtles, it appears, are my calling. In the first 47.5 years of my life, I can honestly say I have touched nary a turtle. Not that I haven't been given chances, you understand. Like any kid, I was presented with plenty of opportunities to touch other kids' pet turtles growing up, but for some reason it never quite happened. Maybe I was afraid of them. Maybe I was afraid that I'd Gronk them into the astroturf spreading little turtle-bits all over. Who knows? The point is that AGAIN today I am able to say that I, Geoff Small, am a Turtle Saver. This little guy had a cracked shell up by his head and he wasn't coming out for love or money. I was a good mile past him when the Catholic guilt I appear to ... read more

And so it begins.... 5am came around VERY early. Wicked early. Early enough that the super-annoying bird that lives outside my house hadn't even gotten started. For those that don't know, I have a bird living right outside Eileen's bedroom window that is the working definition of an over-achiever. Pretty much every day, long before even the merest hint of light has appeared on the horizon, this little bastard is CHIRP-DE-CHIRPY-CHIRP ad infinitum. I've been imagining many creative ways to off this bird for the last several weeks, though to date I've not done anything precipitous. I digress... So today I was up even before he got started, and after a quick goodbye with my lady love (who SWORE she was going to get up with me...O'o) I was on my way to Hull to pick ... read more