06/28 – 29/2018

Nashville, Tenn.

First Life Lesson:  DO NOT start out driving on a long trip wearing new tri-focal  vari-len sun glasses with a new prescription.   Miserable first two days of driving doing a bad impression of a bobble head trying to find the focused part of the lens.  If there was anything worth seeing between Boerne and Nashville it was blurry and I missed it.   Kind of like some of my collage days.  (-:  

Second Life Lesson: Once you are past age 65, you cannot make one of those epic endure drives like you could when you were young a foolish. I drove 867 miles at 60 mph yesterday. Adding in the fuel and personal / relief stops it was nearly a 14 hour day.   I’m broke of thinking I can do that again.  (-:  There wasn’t strong enough coffee or energy drinks available to keep me sharp towards the end of the drive not to mention pain of standing up and walking once I got out of the truck.  More stops and fewer miles. (-:

Anyway, stopped in Ok City and spent the night with my friend Marc Hall.  Always a treat.  Marley the cat was a nice late night neck warmer.  (-:  

Launched early for Nashville so Rick could have a full day to stock and store his ½ of the vertical and horizontal space he was allocated in the 5’ x 8’ truck bed.  We leave in the morning for Quebec City.  

 Before I get to fart along, I want to thank all the generous and talented folks who helped me prepare for this trip.  

Thanks to my ‘Chief Engineer’ Mark of Boatmaster’s fame who provided me with some very expensive ‘loaner’ batteries for my 12 volt ‘house’ electrical systems.  Mark also is on standby for any trouble shooting on the truck. On the Alaska trip he saved the trip with his advice.  Hopefully, this trip is talents will not be needed.  

The Men at Brady Auto rebuilt the old dodge truck from the ground up and it has been a dream to drive so far.  Thanks for all the fine work. 

Les is my computer / blog back up.  We’ll see if he can keep my profound ignorance of computers and blogging from interfering too much with my comms / messages  back home. Thanks Les. 

And last but certainly not least Sheri who held open the front door and handed me a small cash  stipend to encourage me to get on the road so I can hurry up and get back to finish the projects she has line up for me. (-:  Thanks Baby.  Take care of the Boys and the bonsai tell I get back. 

That’s it for today. I’ll keep you posted as the voyage unfolds.  (-: