Saturday Apr 10, 1993

5:20 EST
     IN THE AIR AGAIN. Searching for some great words to string together, to mark this occassion. Great words make great phrases which make great thoughts. How can I write it ---- I'm going to the British Isles! I will walk the soil of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I will experience the Zen of British Dawns. I will seriously endeavour to create a rebirth of my free spirit. "CapiDieme" cease this great adventure and live life like I have never lived before.
     The severely depressing days of doom during the cold bleek agonisingly wintery season jsut past, are just that ... part of the past, the oblivion of unempolyed, zero, less than nothing motivation was horrible.
     But now ... it's approaching dusk as the flight approaches night, yet beyond the night another dawn approaches. With that dawn comes new experiences, fresh emotions, exciting thoughts in a very old land. CAPRIEDIEME! If little else is done but walk English and Scottish and Welsh and Irish village streets, the adventure will be a success. The Zen of Being at a point of space and time.
6:40 EST
     Look to the Future, always eyes, ears, thoughts, toward the future. It seems like forever the understanding, the deep down understanding, has been in coming. Look always to the future.
10:00 EST
     I may be after midnight, so is it already tomorrow? Maybe just east of Greenland, maybe just somewhere ouve the Atlantic. It's the knowing, not the seeing that counts. Six miles high, hundreds of mile from land. The attendent says, we're approaching England so it's not much longer. It must take a while to fly across the Isles.
10:20 EST
     That is a thought, far below is that far off land I've dreamed of visiting. and over the next twenty days I'll be wanderiing said lands. Far below is that land of long ago, from whence my ancestors left, whoever and whenever that point in space and time happened. Six Mile Below.
     ===> I wonder, whyd did Bob think I was a Nam Viet?
     There's something magic about an airplane. One enters it's long cylinder shape at a city airport; then some hours later, one exits at another city hundreds or thousands of miles away. Does the plane really traveres space in some finite time? OR do the surroundings merely change because everyone on board believes in the common destination? Metaphysical, Ha!
11:45 EST
     Forty minutes till landing. I dont understand time travel.

Sunday Apr 11, 1993

2:45 AM EST Park Court Hotel.
     Here, but not here. No room till about 2:00GMT mostly. Had a $14 nothing breakfast, Dont do that anymore. Broke before day 22 arrives I bet. Alone already. Think happy thoughts. Forget about the expenses, but dont forget the lesson.
7:15 AM EST
     Walk a small part of Hyde park after checking in my room at 11:15 AM GMT. Mostly tired and dont know what to do. Packed to much stuff too. Broke my shampoo bottle too.
     But before going to the room I did talk with a Swedish lady. She had been to the States and said "We should be proud of our country." But that meant only the parts she saw, economic tourist mecca.
     Guess I'll try again to repack. Then go to bed.

Monday Apr 12, 1993

7:10 AM EST Across from Guards Museum, just past B Palace.
     My first major excursion on foot, from the Hotel, across Hyde Park, pass Buckingham Palace. Guess I'll go on to Parliment and Big Ben. Had the tour this morning. Westminster Abbey and the other edn of the Greens in front of B.P. Maybe I can start to "feel" the place by the end of the day.
     COPS, Constable On Patrol, Bobbys from Robert Penn the orginal police chief.
     Westminster Abbey is extra typical of the "history" around these places; Old and all the great names are buried there.
9:10 AM EST Hyde Park Corner.
     Been to Big Ben, Parliment, Victoria Station. Talked with an Aussie, a rare coin dealer, he's going to be in LA next week, a rich Aussie, 200 pound per day at his hotel. He loved my southern accent. Victoria Station is like Times Square, all the young "hippies" hang out there. Walked by the Home Office too, must ask exactly what that means. {{ One roller blade youth swooshed by }} It's been a really nice afternoon.
11:25 AM EST
     The Black and White eatery, just around the corner. "They have a James Dean Picture here." Look at the time it's still morning back home and it's after six here. IMMORTALITY IS THE ONLY TRUE SUCCESS. The other picture looks like a young Steve McQueen or Paul Newman.
     3.50 + 1.00 = 4.50 x 1.5 = $6.25 Lazzania and salad and coke supper. These food cost are going to do me in. Had the Contin Breakfast, it was more (quanity) than I thought it would be, so I ate my fill of bowls of cereal (oats and rasin mix) with orange juice, bread and coffee -- lots of coffee.
     You know, there's even a touch of fantisy about being here, those associations with moveis (scriptwriter imaginations). And all those famous names, Dickens, Newton, Churchhill, Cromwell, King This, Queen That. This is still a rich person's playground.

Tuesday Apr 13, 1993

5:55 AM EST Windsor Castle.
     I have been on the road since 9:00 GMT this morning. Have been to Hampton Courts, Past Runnymede, and here. Breakfast was good this morning, more cereals, a bun with jam, and coffee. As long as it's included (free) it tastes good.
     Runnymede was jsut a gazebo tyhpe structure, low on a hillside across open grass. A simple place for such an important point in space - time.
     The fire damage to the castle is really a terrible lost after walking through the state rooms. Even after knowing the men back then were small, seeing a small suit of armor is still impressive. And to think they built such great structures taht must have been gigantic to them.

Wednesday Apr 14, 1993

10:30 PM EST Stratford Motel, the Moat.
     The quadrangle at Oxford and the old buildings were the brief point of interest yesterday afternoon. Old stone buildings with same old stone ground. Old archieture, I have no idea what style. But allthat was on campus grounds, the city is jsut like other big college towns only more tourist instead of fans.
     It was cloudy all day yesterday, the country side shrouded in a dim mist.
     Oh yes, stopped by Winston Churchhill grave and drove by the family estate with it's tall pin like moument.
12:15 AM EST
     Everything has to be proper, no coffee till the appointed time for breakfast. So I'll just sit here till the proper time. "Can I have some one serve you a cup in the lounge?" "No, that's too much bother, I'll just wait."
     At the moment, this just feels like another motel, could be any expensive one in the states. ===> That's what I'm not use to, big money places.
     Me thinks, if I had a special interst in Shakespeare, then Strafford would mean something to me. London did, just because it's London. Strafford is just another tourist draw. The pleasant thing this morning has been a picture of a mother duck with three ducklings and one of a male drake. Or are they geese. Another nice thing will be to see my pictures, they have a developer here and it's not expensive either, six dollars for 24 exposures, and 4 x 6 prints too.
4:38 AM EST Coventry Cathedral
     This city was bombed during the war, the place the top Brits knew was going to be bombed because the code was broken but they didnt want to let the Germans know, so they let it happen anyway. Coventry was the high precision engineering center. The Cathedral remains burned out.
10:15 AM EST York, the Medievil City.
     Another great place metamorphisied into a tourist draw. But one can still imagine what it was like.
10:15 PM EST The WALLS of YORK.
     {{Tour guide story: Fort night -- Roman Soldier on guard for 2 weeks at Haddrians wall. Pics -- Roman name of North Scotland people, picture.}}

Thursday Apr 15, 1993

10:15 PM EST BlackWell MoatHouse Lobby.
     This place is almost, if not really, a country club. The --- words just wont come to mind, for me the place is elegant but not "gaudy rich". One of the phamplets in the room said this is their three hundred year anniversary, three centurys. So maybe it is, but it looks modern. Does this one, does every one, have a history too? A solid pale green wall paper with pinkish pattern waistcoating and polished woodwork and a few old loking portraits. They have just unlocked the front doors so I'll go for a walk now.
1:30 AM EST On the MotorWay again.
     Yesterday, there was a distant mountain range on which was a white horse. A teacher and his students created it by digging up the trees and chipping the limestone. They did it in the 1850s. Ian Walker, the tour director, said other directors say it's by the Romans, Druids, Vikings or others.
     We also past by the village where the author of "Alice in Wonderland" lived (or visited during the season). "I'm Late, I'm Late, I'm Late" was spoken by the townspeople as they crossed a bridge to drink beer for another hous in the adjacent village.
5:55 AM EST
     Walkabout Floors Castle, out back, near Live Oak.

Friday Apr 16, 1993

2:20 AM EST Edingburg tour.
     #17 ? Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasury Island. #52 Queens St Sir James Young Simpson, cloroform childbirth. Market Square Mary Queen of Scotts, James I of Britian, box at Edingburg lowered through window. 1858 - 1872 Bobby the Scot Terrier, grave at Jock Greyfaiars. ----
     Eddinborough Castle, oldest crown jewels of western Europe, Royal Mile, Laws Market, Dr Jekeil and Mr Hyde base on Decean Brodie pillow of government by day thief and murder by night, John Knox 1490s oldest building outside of Castle. Doyle born where traffic circle, "round-a-bout"
8:30 AM EST City Monument Hill. NE of Castle.
     Sat here a few moments to take in the sight and feel of Edingburg. Did walk down to Aruther Cannon Doyle birth place where they have a statue of Sherlock Holmes. Always windy, always damp, always cold.
9:00 AM EST the Pizza Place again.
     This is starting out to be curious. The waiters are over there eating and talking, well forget that thought, he's finished and my order is placed.
     Just as I left the hill, a young firl was headed to the monument, but I did not see here on the cliff side and now I doubt if she saw it. The ThoughtSmithing I left behind that is.
     The elderly couples at the next table are exchanging languages like they change thuoghts, English among themselves, Italian with the waiter, Scot (galiec) phrases occassionaly. One, the italian talker, questions the waiter about the beer, wine, food, whisky. Is all that second nature to them? They are Europeans and that's the way they are. Or is it the way they think things are suppose to be. If it was a French place would he have spkend French instead of Italian?
     What I should be doing, is be interested in the Old Times. Go back to the sparcely peopled streets of this morning. That was nice! Only two or three per block, solitude to contemplate the history of the city.
     There is an occassional youth {one with a cardboard sign "homeless and hungry", one juggling flame sticks, one with clown paint (just spots) balancing and juggling, one picking the banjo} doing young and free street things, maybe old desperate things. They -- all of they -- have there way of surviving and it seems the same, LA, ATL, DC, Edinburg or anyother big city in Europe or the world.
     The guide today said we were at the 55 latitude, 1200 miles north of Pickens, SC, USA. Look at this, as far North as I was South of Pickens on the Carribean Cruise, Barbados, 13 degees.

Sunday Arp 18, 1993

1:40 AM EST Riding the HighLands Again.
     Ian the tour director storys: * stone railway tressle over a deep valley * stone pillars and steel girder tressle * General Walf did not participate in butchery at Cullodan * Haniver protestents versus Jackabrack Catholic * Banning of arms, pipes, kelts, swords * Bonny chrisimia, looks, character, pose * Charter bought from King makes a town * Town becomes a city when Cathedral is built * First Ness sighting 500s, most during 1930s more travelers * Lock Ness ruins Unchat Castle 1500s * Glen Cloe - hospitality of everyone neede dto survive the harshness. McDonaldds massace after giving their hospitality to Campbells, 40 people * Battle of Culleden 1745-46 worst * Wales Methodist stronghold * 9 of diamond death card.
5:20 PM EST
     Glenn Cloe Campgrounds. We'd call them gorges.

Monday Apr 19, 1993

1:30 AM EST Rolling Again.
     The WEST HIGHLANDS WAY is a trail, like the Appalichain or Muir on Pacfic Cresent. The steep hills, they're not high, but they are nice to walk along. Another one of the "wish I was there for a long time" places.
3:00 AM EST
     Will be passing Lockinly Scotland, where the plane landed.

Tuesday Apr 20, 1993

5:15 AM EST Haydon Castle, Between Manchester and Chester.
     An old place which stood empty and abandoned between 1700 and 1900 and that caused it to retain it's older character, some of which dates back to 10 and 12 hundreds. The Duke lives in a small part of it and lets the tourist have the rest.
     There was a gorge we drove through to get here, it would have been nice to stop and get a picture or two. Ian the tour director lecture: King -- Duke (Prince Duke of) -- Marques (Count) -- Earl -- Vicount -- Barron. Your Grace Duke ... My Lord Earl of ... Eldest son takes next lowest title.
9:30 AM EST The City Walls of Chester.
     Ruins of Roman times 70 - 80 AD. Deep beneath the modern tourist tractions, there maybe memorys of ancient times. There's even one part that's street level inside but wall high outside. There's that much buried memories beneath.
12:50 PM EST ATLANTIC HOTEL Liverpool. Lobby
     My four day old cold has driven me inside, except for the essentials only. Like after the ride through the country and being out, twice on that ride, the only thing to do was find food and walk over to it and back. Looked in the phonebook for a BurgerKing address, 91 Zord St. and it ws within walking distance. So off I went. I now understand why we Americans seek out the familar even though it will be more expensive. But it's not, the same as LA a dollar or so more than Pickens. It's still the best buys. {{Radar Love on the minibox}}
     The city walls of Chester were nice, like maybe two or three hundred years ago before the tourist traps sprang up. I walked around the top of the wall, most of it is just another big city,only a third or so, that around the refirbished old town street, around the Cathedral, would be nice early some morning before the crowds come out.
     The Cunnard and White Line buildings are nearby, the great ship builders and ocean liner managers.

Wednesday Apr 21, 1993

2:10 AM EST
     * Yankees derived from Dutch for John Cheese. Yan -- Chez * Snowdon -- Mountainous Valleys.
3:00 AM EST
     This place, Snowdonia, is the place to hike about. The High Country of Wales.
4:20 AM EST Castle Carnoforne
     The Prince of Wales is investured here since circa 1250. Wandering the ways of the castle is interesting. Gives a feel of how it was then. Mostly just lost in thought, dreaming of how it use to be.
10:20 AM EST
     Ferry Crossing, HolyHead to Dublin. The lounge part of the boat.

Thursday Apr 22, 1993

4:45 AM EST
     TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
7:40 AM EST
     Hotel Lobby. The lunch hour crowd -- 1 til 2 pm -- has left. Seems lot of the University people walk over here to eat. The Univesity of Dublin that is. Walked over there before the showers started, just enough drizzle and cool wind too make walking outside miserable, especially with post cold stufyness.
     Rode around town this morning, saw the Books of Kell at Trinty College. Stood on the College grounds, thought about leaving a ThoughtSmithing there, realized I didnt have one with me. That's about the only thrill there is in these big cities. Some bit of seclusion admist the crowds of a million. Maybe an early morning walk in the city centre would be nice if only the hotel was there.
     The other disappointment is that it's always on the verge of raining which is not conducive to taking off for a walkabout. The genealogy places are city centre, but why go there to find nothing and get cold and wet in the process.
     The ride through the high country, SnowDownia, just being out in the wilderness, not that's not quite right. The bolder top mountains with runoff waterfalls country is better. Wilderness to my is a forest and fifty miles of nothingness. If only there were more stops in nature places this trip would be better.
     Anyway, I'm left with only the Zen of just being here, the knowing and not the seeing of the places I've been. Too many too fast.
     The bar-pub-grub pub here is fancy, woodwork and pictures and mirros and huge and comfortable seat.
     Anyway - did the Hughes orginate in Ireland or where they just passing through from Wales from England from France. Are we Welch or Irish or English or French or all of them during some past generation?
     The ferry crossing was closer to being like a navy ship thatn the cruise ship with all the viberation, wind and blukness. To have made the crossing alone, far from home,would have been difficult. The familarity of traveling companions made it easy to keep the mind occuppied rather than dwelling on traveling alone. --- There may have been a crowd of college students from Michigan (or the States) on the ferry, least they looked and spoke American.
     And just wher did the ancestor walk? The Street of Dublin or the country around LandsEnd? Imagine there anywhere and everywhere as long as it's the "where" of where I've been.
     An Irish Family function passes by from the Resturant to the outside, wonder what the special occassion might be?
11:15 AM EST AFTER HOURS PUB
     This seems too much of a dress up place, I'll be underdressed and thus ignored. "It's just another tourista and worst a Globus Tourista" so much out of place. It's going to be another expensive meal, $8.65, but if it's divide for lunch too, no too much for both.
     Oh man, to be rich and not have to count pennys. So much worry over cost that the joy of being here is going. It's inbreed, this hurting for money. But then when I let go, it's gone with little to show.
     ------- thousand miles, eightteen days along the serendipity trail through the old land, a lot seen of ancient scenes, too brief a moment to really sense the space and time.

Saturday Apr 24, 1993

2:50 AM EST Cliffs of Mohr
     Bought a struggling artist's tape. {{Her songs and singing.}}
5:15 AM EST Callaway Square, With the Iron Sails.
     Being out in the country at the Cliffs of Mohr was nice, for a brief thirty minutes. The ride and looking over the rocky (limestone) landscape was nice too, lots of nice pictures to make but pictures through moving, tinted glass yields a tinted view of the way things are.
     The main thing missing is the family connectins, who are my ancestors, if any, lived here and exactly where did they live? And who among these people near by are my distant cousins, if any? Are they the well to do, or the drunken homeless, or the ever present street kids?
     The neverending wondering of what the past was!
     The cycle racers past by, 250 miles.
11:20 AM EST Hotel Lobby.
     {{Margin note: For the locals, it's Saturday night out at the Hotel's Resturant.}} Crowds, crowds everywhere, the country grill, the fine resturant, little kids everywhere. All I wanted was an order of chips and a corner to hide in, but even here the struggle to have what I want is not lessened by distance from home. {{Margin note: Trying to comose prose while hungry is difficult.}}
     From the sea they are a Wall, from the green fields they are one side of a Well. The Cliffs of Mohrs. Most every story the storteller tells contain bits or chunks of morbid doings, hatered and jealously and greed for power yields gruesome murder or wholesale slaughter. Mohr is no diff.
     Where on this bloody island are my ancestors?

Sunday Apr 25, 1993

11:05 PM EST Hotel Again.
     Last evening was another waste, when I thought there might be room in the Grill to get an order of chips, another big crowd walked in just in front of me. They were turned away so I just walked away. And the kids kept on running around everywhere.
     The morning man is just now unlocking the doors, they do lock up their hotels at night.
     So what is there left to do except sit here and imagine the good things which were to happen with this trip.
6:45 AM EST RING OF KERRY, the High Country of West Island.
     Old Stone Houses. The Ring is the flaten land near the esurary (bay), the mountains in the middle. Another good place to hike about. There are 1700's stone houses here, which one did the Hughes' live in?

Monday Apr 26, 1993

11:10 PM EST Tralee, Hotel Lobby.
     No thoughts forethcoming.
5:00 AM EST Blarny Castle.
     Sitting ont the bus, waiting. The castle ruins were interesting, the Rock Gardens were nice, but other than that, another tourist town.
10:30 AM EST WaterFord, Hotel Lobby.
     The Ireland, Erie, trip is over. Only supper tonight and the ride to the ferry in the morning remain to be done. My only connections with the land is the countryside, the mountains and harsh westlands. A city is a city no matter where in the world it is. The wee bit of history for Waterford is just across the street, another round tower, Reginald's this time. And again Cromwell distroyed the old town here too, there are bits of the old wallbackdown the street too, but present day building obscures them, overwhelming their presence.
     There has been too much too fast and yet too few country visits. == There's also been more hitchhikers in Eire than I've seen elsewhere. Mostly people just trying to get from one place to another. Occasionaly there is a youth with a backpack who sturs my imagination into visions of wandering freely and youngly.
     The past, history of the places I've been, that's all that interests my mind. What has been happenig in the round tower across the way? For these past few centuries. If not that tower, those old, abandoned stone farm houses around the Ring of Kerry where us common folk lived. The instrumental music in the background is nice, I suppose it's Irish, some kind of flute tone.

Tuesday Apr 27, 1993

10:50 PM EST Waterford Hotel Lobby.
     Departure from Ireland this morning.
2:45 AM EST Ferry Boat Deck.
     And Ireland, Eire, faded away into the sea mist. Trying to redo the trip in my mind, exercising the memory cells as best I can to keep them burnt in for a long while.
4:30 AM EST Ferry Boat.
     The coffe mugs have been brought. There opportunities to pause, reflect and write are not very productive. There are only moments of the here and now with vague feelings about bits of this trip. No real Zen experiences.
9:40 AM EST BurgerKing, Cardiff Wales.
     With "APPLE PIE" playing in the background. It was sunny druing the ride to here, but now that we here and have to walk, it's cloudy and drizzling again. By the way, it's another crowded, tourist city.
11:50 AM EST Cardiff, Hotel Sitting Room.
     This has an old fashion sense about it, with the leather chairs and sofa and the fireplace. Definitely not an ancient place, but early 1900s maybe, maybe late 1800s at the most. Gail, Jan, Lea the Aussies came back from their walk, they ate at a Pizza Hut across from the Castle. Every major city has it's castle, but this one is an 1800 model built on ancient ruins some of which are Roman.
     Me thinks it's a Sherlock Holmes sense of this Hotel.

Thursday Apr 29, 1993

3:50 AM EST Plymoth, MayFlower Steps.
     Left the last of this trips "ThoughtSmithing" here, issue #100. Probably as appropriate a place as any even if there might be an outdoors wilderness place later.
     So this is the place where the Mayflower departed from, some 373 years ago. Other than an historic point in space and time (for America anyway) it's jsut another place. There are a few remains of the narrow winding streets, but they have tourist stops and resturants on them now.
11:10 AM EST Exter Hotel Lobby.
     Darfmoor, Wales' High Country, another place to trek for a day or two. And that is about all there is left, Stonehenge and London again, then it is true at an end.
     In the hotel lobby, there is an elder lady and a young lady, they are sitting and talking. I think the young lady is looking after the elder lady, a homeless looking lady, perhaps down and out English style type of elder. One who was once use to, at home in these hotel places. Proper and elegant they both are.
     Ian the tour director said Doyle visited the DorfMoors and was inspired to write the Hounds of Baskerville. I was where Doyle was born in Edinburg a few days ago. And on the news a few nights ago, they were talking wtih a MP, the Parliment and Big Ben were in the background. It looked familar this time on the television, I was there too.
     I still wish I could feel more connected with the places I've been. They seem like some ordinary place, just another city, famous city perhaps, anywhere else in the world, and weeks from now, months, just a vague memory.

Saturday May 1, 1993

5:25 AM EST INFLIGHT.
     Yesterday was Stonehenge day, for thirty minutes, that was the high point of the day and a high point of the trip, but "they" saw fit to allow only thirty minutes to contemplate being there. There are burial mounds some two - three thousand yards all around, one was lined up with the Summer Solistice. The Stones were more closely packed than I thought, and sitting on a hill-plain made the scene smaller than expected. The info - plaques depicted a wooded - water area when they were begun. If only it could have been a two hour visit and really try to connect with the place.
     Last afternoon and night in London was a bust, mostly concerned with packing up to leave. The only outting was around a corner and down the street a ways to have the last sandwich and coke --- and buy the last $3.60 pack of cigs.
     The 6:30 departure this morning was messed up with no breakfast such as it would have been. The tour people and the hotel people should be more accomadating. It was not the best of last impressions.
     The airport this was different, security checked all luggage before ticket check in. Tow announcements of un-attended luggage, "maybe distroyed". Questions about "did you pack it yourself", "is all contents yours", "did anyone ask yuo to carry anything fo them", ectera. The shop area was more crowded than Atlanta or O'hara or LA. But the airport thing was mostly walking and waiting.
     Anyway, the trip is over, fini, done. But was it all wortht he $3,500 - 3,750 it cost me? I suppose so, the disappointments were not being able to spend time at the outside places which interest me. If the thoughts and feelings last a long time - years - yes. But if the first tragedy comes to soon and overwhelms them - no.
     The last line --- me thinks there will not be any "ThoughtSmithing" words.
9:15 AM EST
     More than halfway I would think by now. I am back in "time travel" situationa nd I'll never understand flight time and time zones. The movie is Scent of a Woman, silent movie for me, like the Chaplin before. I thought there would be one empty smoking seat but there inst and I'm sure the rush to get through custom and on to the next flight will keep me from smoking till GSP.
     The travel feeling is beginning to fade away.
11:10 AM EST
     The staring into the black coffee, I could almost loose myself in my thoughts -- FOCUS -- focus on one object which doesnt suggeest any emotions or thoughts and then the mind is free to do what the object does not. Avoid distraction.

Wednesday May 5, 1993

4:45 EST Pizza Inn.
     Blackwater and funky Dixieland play on the sound box. Just (only) read the tour entries. Nothing more to write about --- yet.

Thursday May 6, 1993

10:00 EST Glassy Mtn, WestSide.
     Have been reviewing - reliving - exercising my memory of the trip. Did the flight over, two day in London, and the tour through Edingburgh, will pick up the ride out of Edingburgh later.
     Mostly have been trying to make a connection between the recent past and the long past while thinking of recent and looking out over Pickens County with all of its and mine thoughts.

Monday May 31, 1993

4:30 EST Pizza Inn.
     For the past three weeks I've been writing abut the trip, these last two night and a day and the flight home remain. It'll take longer to write about it than to do it. When I first began it was just a letter, but the more I wrote the more I rememberd, and now it's 116 pages long. Hopefully it'llbe a record after my mind fails.
     I can only do four hours at a time,usually in the mornings, an hour to write one page which takes thirty seconds to read.
     Parts of the trip I remember well, almost feel that part again, the places where I walked - not rode - are the ones I remember. The places where we stopped briefly -- are just that -- brief memorys.
     I was suppose to have been working on the engineering software -- going back to work. I thought this trip writing wouldnt take long, but it has. And I want to do a Picken County Tour -- maybe -- for sure -- I'm scared of not finding work again, of loosing everything.
     Why try -- no one will hire uneducated .......