Blogs from O'Fallon, Missouri, United States, North America

I have just one more day at home! I believe my flight leaves at 8:50 AM Sunday morning. Can't remember off the top of my head what time our flight for Beijing leaves next week. To get an idea of what I'll be doing, check out the different links on this page: http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/countries/asia/volunteer-china/xian.aspx I'm going with a group of 9 other ROTC cadets, mostly from West Point but a few from elsewhere, and a supervising officer. Essentially, we're going as a regular volunteer group for CCS (meaning we won't be doing any Army-oriented things over there). With some of our free time, our supervising officer, Maj. Wilson, said he'll expect us to write regular reflections on our time there. He's also planning a weekend (or day?) sight-seeing trip to Beijing, since CCS leaves the weekends totally ... read more

I started on the road at 7:00 AM, even though I awoke at 4:00 AM. I'm still struggling with the time change from Europe. The weather forecast was unbelievably good every day for the next week along my route. It would be 70 degrees or so and sunny. I'm making a solo motorcycle trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas for the Bikes, Blues & Barbecue Rally running through this weekend. My riding buddies couldn't make the trip. There are drawbacks to early retirement, such as having no retired friends to ride with me. My plan is to make my river run to the St. Louis area, basically following the Illinois River west and south to the Mississippi River and cross that, taking 2 lane roads as much as possible to O'Fallon, west of St. Louis. My son, Brett ... read more