Doges and I had an early start this morning - check out of the hotel and on the road by 5:45am. A stop at a Dunkin' Donuts with WiFi let me do some necessary check-ins. One donut, half a luke-warm coffee and Dogan's brekkie later, we were back on the road. It was strangely peaceful driving so early with no cars on the road. I turned on some tunes (thanks to everyone who contributed to "Beth's x-country Playlist"!) and zoned out. Tennessee is a beautiful state - even though I only saw it from the highway, I was in awe. The [View Full Entry]

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Its taken 3 years of training to get to this point and I've finally completed the 4 hour exam to finalise my qualification as a...wait for it...its a mouthful... "Listening and Spoken Language Speicalist - Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist" or (LSLS Cert AVT). I told people back home that from what its taken to get this far you'd surely be able to hear my WOOHOOOOOs from the other side of the planet! I still have to wait 3 weeks for the results (it was NOT an easy exam) so if you miss this first lot of WOOHOOOOOOs keep and ear out for [View Full Entry]

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One of the things that I hate about driving cross-country is dealing with the Plains. No offense, but Kansas is so boring, so imagine my surprise as I pull into the first rest stop and see that it offers free wireless internet. It worked great and I was able to make the requisite post to Facebook but little did I know that it must have been the only wireless equipped rest stop in the State because I didn't see another one. The best surprise in crossing Kansas was the wind farm. It sits very close to the highway near Salina called [View Full Entry]

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Well, this was ours. We decided not to "do St. Louis" as a stop along the way since we spent a day at Yellowstone. Little did I know that you have to go through St. Louis to get to Memphis, but oh well!! We got up this morning, and we headed out after another "complimentary hot breakfast" in the hotel. We have been pretty spoiled with nice hotels so far. We aren't staying in luxury 5-star, but we stayed in the Comfort Inn in Twin Falls, which was very nice, and then the last couple of nights, we stayed in [View Full Entry]

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Well, I completed my first class at UMSL, in my quest to complete my IMBA. I did well, got an A and decided, since I had really nothing to do after class, to take my mom and my nephew Nick for a little drive across the country to see the sights and to visit my sister Kathy and my brother Tim in California. Our first stop was Meramec Caverns where the floods ahd hit. Nick had never been there. So, we took a few pictures and we were on our way. [View Full Entry]

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Saturday, June 27 (Elkhart KOA to St. Louis West KOA): Not much to write about today. We left the Elkhart/Middlebury KOA this morning just after 8am and stopped at a KFC/Taco Bell along the way for lunch. We’d reset our watches to Central Time just before that and were trying to adjust our routine by eating a later lunch than usual, but didn’t expect the KFC/Taco Bell place to help us out, by taking over 20 minutes to fill a simple order for two! The father and son next to us had waited almost 40 minutes for their lunch. Not sure [View Full Entry]

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We’re in…a parking garage at our hotel. Well, I knew about it when I booked the place, so we checked in and took some things to a cart before I punched in the code and maneuvered my car to a space in the single-story garage. The GPS (which we narrowed down the names for; I think Sylvia will stick) won’t work in there, so we had to ride out from under the roof and start our day and route in the parking lot. Next door to our hotel, a community project garden was growing. A sign said it was sponsored by [View Full Entry]

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Today was my last touring day on this leg and it went out with a bang. This morning I went to the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica, which replaced the original Cathedral over 100 years ago. The Basilica is located in an older part of town with tree lined streets, large brick and stone homes and countless churches. The structure didn’t appear particularly large from the exterior - I drove past one side and didn’t realize I was there - but the architecture is grand. The real treat was going inside where I was overwhelmed by its size and grandeur. The in [View Full Entry]

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The trip up to St. Louis today was about as uneventful as they come. It was only a few hours plus a quick stop at Fort Campbell on the Tennessee/Kentucky border. I didn’t realize that I’d be driving by Fort Campbell, home of the Screaming Eagles. There’s supposed to be a museum that I tried to find but never did. So it became a brief detour. Along the way I got to thinking how peaceful it’s been driving in these parts of the country. I’ve heard less horn honking in the last three weeks than I would in any given hour [View Full Entry]

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I had a fairly open mind about what we might experience on this trip, knowing that there were too many variables. Our scripture to ponder on the day of assault on St.Louis, was Joseph's journey into slavery (Gen. 37). The question I wondered about as I finished my pondering and prayer time was: "When have I been on a coerced journey like Joseph's and how did I react? I came up with a few vague ideas, but nothing I was very satisfied with. I needn't have worried: a sample was about to slap us in the face. We got lost at [View Full Entry]

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