Spontaneous Nash Dash

With little advance planning, I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, and drove to Nashville. The day’s goal, seeing the Cleverlys at Station Inn, was accomplished without a hitch. The only other thing scheduled is a Long Players show on Saturday but I’m thinking there might be some other stuff in between. Supposedly, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty two guitar pickers around here somewhere.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers now about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

JHA 2018 Conference

On Monday, the temperature in Cincinnati plummeted into the 30s and there were snowflakes in the air. I took that as a sign to leave town so I did. And headed north. I don’t mean just a few-miles-to-Dayton north but a few-miles-into-Canada north. On the surface, that must appear even more logic defying than my most recent trip to chilly Pittsburgh but it’s really not as dumb as it sounds. My target in Canada is Winnipeg, Manitoba. Almost as soon as I reach there, I’ll start south on my first full length drive of the Jefferson Highway and that will take me to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. “Pine to Palm” as the highway’s nickname promises. Near the midpoint, I’ll pause for a few days to attend the 7th Annual Jefferson Highway Association Conference in Saint Joseph, Missouri. At the end, I’ll pause a few days to visit my NOLA resident oldest son.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers now about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio, and Nile

No river actually runs through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Allegheny and Monongahela flow into the city where they combine to form the Ohio which flows out. On Monday, I drove US-22 from near my home to where that wet magic takes place.

And Willie Nile isn’t a river at all. He’s a rock and roller who is performing in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. I’m here to see that and some of the city too.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers now about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

I Can Drive Twenty-Five

I’m off to Georgia and I’m driving an entire US highway to get there. I’ve had the idea of driving all of US-25, which now ends/begins at the Ohio River, for several years. As I was weighing ideas for this year’s Christmas Escape Run, I finally took a look at what was at its other end and I liked what I saw. Brunswick, where the highway actually ends, has some history and so does nearby Jekyll Island.

This entry is to let folks who subscribe only to the blog know about it as well as provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

SCA Conference 2017

When I travel to a conference or festival, the journal often begins to lag once I’ve arrived and organized activities begin to take up most of my time. When there is no travel involved, when the event is in the city where I live, that lag kicks in immediately. With the 2017 Society for Commercial Archeology Conference being just twenty miles from my home, there was no “trip”, only non-stop conference activities. There was just no time for the journal until the conference was over. All four days have been posted at one time. 

The trip journal is here. This entry is to let blog only subscribers know of the trip and provide a place for comments and questions.

Swede Mysteries of Life

DNA testing has recently uncovered a family connection with seventeenth century Philadelphia area settlers from Sweden. An uncle, two cousins, and I are off to poke around a little though we sure don’t know enough to dig very deep. On the other hand, we actually know so little that it will be hard not to learn something. Even if we return home knowing no more than when we left, we are sure to enjoy looking into our nation’s earliest history. We have arrived in the big city and the first day is posted.

The trip journal is here. This entry is to let blog only subscribers know of the trip and provide a place for comments and questions.

Lincoln Highway Conference 2017

I’m on my way to the Lincoln Highway Association’s 25th Annual Conference which begins Tuesday in Denison, Iowa. When I first decided to attend, I envisioned a slow drive of the Lincoln Highway from Iowa’s eastern border to the western side of the state where Denison sits. Events in Cincinnati prevented me from leaving before Mondays morning so that slow drive on the LH has become a much speedier drive on the interstates. I do have the eastbound route of the LH through Iowa loaded into the GPS and hope to drive all or some of it after the conference. We shall see.

The trip journal is here. This entry is to let blog only subscribers know of the trip and provide a place for comments and questions.  

My Fiftieth: Hawaii

More often than not, I wait until the first day of a trip is past and the journal for that day posted before making an entry here. Not this time. One reason is that most of the first day will be spent flying so there may be little or nothing worth reporting. Even if there are things to post, I may not have the time or energy to do it in a timely manner. The fact that all that flying involves six time zones won’t help. There are certainly enough potential problems with the first day’s journal post to justify doing the blog post a little early but I must admit that the timing just might be affected by my own excitement.

That the destination is Hawaii accounts for some of the excitement but hardly all. I have previously visited forty-nine of the United States as well as the District of Columbia which means that Hawaii will complete the set. That’s a pretty big deal to me and the fact that I’ll be celebrating my seventieth birthday while I’m there is kind of a big deal, too.

In addition to the special occasions it contains, this trip is different than most in the degree of planning involved. Flying is required which means that start and end dates had to be firmly nailed down in advance. Same thing with hotels and rental cars since a full hotel or a sold out rental fleet isn’t something I want to deal with on an island. So, although I’ll be able to exercise spontaneity at meal time, I pretty much already know where I’ll be and when I’ll be there. Tomorrow, March 23, I head off to spend six nights each on Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii (The Big Island).  

The journal for the trip is here. This entry is to let blog subscribers know of the trip and to provide a place for comments.