Travels with Matty 2018

     Apparently this trip was scheduled to last exactly eight weeks. Why else would Matty drive twelve  hours (the first hour and a half in snow) in order to get home eight weeks to the day after we left? Not much new in the 'hood. The nearest homeless camp moved a couple of hundred yards up the road. The buildings under construction are four stories taller. And that's about it. The concierge could not come up with a single nugget of interest that we missed.     We're no worse for wear after eight weeks on the road.  Emma Peel performed flawlessly. Matty stayed healthy the entire trip and, except for some minor tummy trouble in Virginia, so did I.     We saw many interesting sites and some not so interesting ones. But, as I have written previously, it was the people who gave us shelter and the people we broke bread with who made the trip. Even the households with the overly friendly big dogs were fantastic. To all of them (you) we say thanks.     The trip began with a to

     An hour west of Denver sits Dillon Lake where my Denver hosts have a condo they put on Airbnb. It was vacant this week so Matty and I spent two nights there. Breckinridge and Vail are close by, but it is not ski season so Matty rode his bike around the lake. At 9200 feet he suffered on the uphills. I even got winded going up the 35 steps to the condo. The place is absolutely gorgeous.     I thought Portland would be our next destination, but, apparently, Matty hadn't had his fill of lake beauty so we find ourselves in Fish Haven, Idaho, near where Idaho, Utah and Wyoming meet. More stunning beauty and the first sunrise of the trip. One last bike ride this afternoon, one last night here, and then Portland. We'll see if Matty wants to do the eleven and a half drive in one day or two.      Tomorrow will mark eight weeks on the road. It will take time to digest. Monday we will hit the ground running: Mail pickup, arrange for haircuts, get Emma Peel serviced, pay late bills,

     On August 14, 1960, John Kennedy paid a visit to Eleanor Roosevelt at Val-Kill, her private home in Hyde Park. They met one-on-one on that Sunday afternoon so he could ask for her endorsement for president. She was concerned about his commitment to civil rights and about the influence his father might have on a Kennedy administration. Apparently he said all the right things convincingly, because he got her endorsement and the rest, as they say... Here are some of the lyrics to the Simon and Garfunkle song that was originally titled Mrs. Roosevelt, but changed to Mrs. Robinson when used in The Graduate:                     Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon                     Going to the candidate's debate                     Laugh about it, shout about it                     When you've got to choose                     Every way you look at this you lose      Matty and I are sitting on a sofa on a Monday morning in Denver watching the snow come down. Half a

    I wasn't really feeling the blog last night so I kind of gave Ike short shrift. Here's three things I learned about him.      He enjoyed driving an electric car that had a top speed of 19 miles an hour and a range of 13 (or maybe it was the other way around).     He made his bones as commander of Camp Colt which housed 10,000 soldiers near Gettysburg. His deft handling of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 helped forge his reputation.      In 1919 he was part of a military convoy that traveled from Washington, DC, to San Francisco and took an agonizing 62 days. As president, his support of the transcontinental highway system shortened that time considerably.     I always feel better when I have shared useless information. Emma is packed and we are off to Denver. Up, up, and away. Precious

     Trivia question: I've been listening to a lot of radio this trip and there is one song I've heard at least once every travel day and twice a day in Canada. Hint: it's by a British group and its about how you don't have to be godlike to be a superhero. Answer later.      Spent a day tooling around Kansas City. The attractions are lined up north to south from the limited access to the Missouri River through a market area. Then you have to skip two interstates to get to downtown and then on to the museum district. There are a lot of museums.     A couple of weeks ago we went to FDR's presidential library in Hyde Park. Since then we've driven by Woodrow Wilson's Library in Staunton, VA, and  Harry Tuman's in Independence, MO. We stopped at neither. Today we stopped at Eisenhower's library in Abilene, Kansas. Small town boy from the wrong side of the tracks makes good. We then drove through Wamego, which bills itself as Wizard of Oz central. It has

     Harrisonburg, Virginia, was a pleasant break from New York and DC. We stayed just outside of town where there is lots of corn, chickens, Mennonites, and the occasional horse drawn Amish buggy. In town are several universities which doubles the town's population during the school year. The house we stayed at had four animals, maybe more. An overly friendly dog and a herd of cats only one of whom was the least bit interesting. I walked the nearby Appalachian Trail, or at least 0.1% of it.     Then west toward Kansas City. We got as far as eastern Kentucky. The weather was glorious and we camped at a state campground and Matty toured one of several caves on site. He said the tour included a lot of scientific background delivered by self-styled hillbilly. "We can get the columns to glow in the dark. The science guys call it phosphorescence, but I like to call it redneckery." He probably has more science degrees than Matty has molars, but he puts on quite the downhome sh