Day 46 -- May 16, 2003 -- Friday

We have completed the first loop Round America. After 12,289 miles, we were home in Atlanta. Bozzie Jane wasn't with me for the last eight days. She flew back to Atlanta from Dallas after spending some time taking care of her father and helping her mother.

It was a most enjoyable 45 days, and I look forward to completing the trip. 15 states down and 35 to go, but I was guessing the trip was 40% behind us. We'll top 29,000 miles in total. We had been through 989 towns so far with 2,500 on our itinerary. We have bought 616 gallons of gas. We have traveled the two-lane roads as planned, and I passed only 10 cars in 45 days. Technically, I had passed only eight cars; I passed two vehicles twice.

We've met a lot of nice people and some very interesting folks. The Floating Neutrinos (Day 18) still top the list of most interesting, though Harley and Annabelle in Erick, Oklahoma (Day 38), and the two chicken farmers and one rancher in Maysville, Arkansas (Day 40) were very interesting as well. We've probably met close to 800 people so far as that's how many business cards we gave out. I can list 611 who I know we met.

We have seen incredible sights. Major sights included the Grand Canyon, Daytona Beach, South Beach, Key West, Savannah, Bourbon Street, South Padre Island, Big Bend, Trinity Site, The Array, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Route 66, the Rose Bowl, Sedona, Santa Fe, the National Memorial in Oklahoma City, the arch in St. Louis, Graceland, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Equally enjoyable were Harry and the Natives, the world's largest lobster, the world's smallest church, the Perky Bat Tower, The Shell Factory, Sponge-O-Rama, the world's smallest police station, the world's largest Neptune statue, Lamberts, the human statues in New Orleans, the Orange Show, the Beer Can House, TeePee Motel, Little Graceland, the Los Ebanos Ferry, Freddie's Fast Lube & Snow Cone Stand, the Rio Grande River, Terlingua, the Roy Orbison Museum, the Roswell UFO Museum, Pie Town New Mexico, Truth or Consequences New Mexico, Bisbee Arizona, the airplane graveyard in Tucson, the center of the world, the Doheny Woodie Show, the home of the world's largest flag, the Dawsons, the DiSantos, the towns of Bagdad in Florida and California, the Bagdad Cafe, Tinkertown, Cadillac Ranch, the Big Texan Steak Ranch, Toad Hall, the sawed off Giant's legs, the Buddy Holly Museum, Prairie Dog Town, the Shanklins, Palo Duro Canyon, the Will Rogers Museum, the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, the small version of the Twin Towers in Tulsa, George Robertson, the Overalls and the Huggins, the home of Rush Limbaugh, Beale Street, Sun Studios, Karaoke Night at Wet Willie's, Paradise Gardens, numerous sunsets, and flags and patriotic displays everywhere.

We enjoyed some great food. In fact, in 45 days, there was just one meal that we were disappointed with. We ate 49 "pies," and there were some mighty good ones. The Key Lime Pie at Harry and the Natives (Day 5) currently ranks #1.

We've learned or relearned some great lessons.

I'm sure I've entertained a lot of people with the beads I've worn since I received them from the Floating Neutrinos on Day 18. I've probably told the beads story at least 100 times so far.

Only one traffic ticket (Day 3). I was also stopped and "busted" for drugs in Missouri (Day 41) No serious car problems that we know about. I bought one new tire for five missionaries in the middle of nowhere in Texas, but the little white car will go in this week for four new tires. We did come across a number of people who we felt were trying to steal my camera, but we managed to stay out of harm's way. I drove every mile myself.

Barbara and I combined to take 5,257 photos -- an average of 116.8 per day and almost one photo per half mile. I did some writing -- but mainly just a recap of the day's events. I have recorded far more thoughts, and I collected over 120 pounds of brochures and information that I will use in writing the book.

In 45 days -- 1080 hours, we did not see any real rain until Day 44! Amazing. It rained for several hours on Day 44 from Memphis to Nashville, but we saw only a few minutes of raindrops in Florida prior to this. I drove right between serious tornados in Oklahoma but never saw a drop of rain.

We had relatively few problems. The biggest problems were the inability to connect with the Internet for a week that put me hopelessly behind on the web site work and one broken tape recorder after another. I obtained an 800-number Internet service for the remainder of the trip so I will be able to dial in from anywhere with a phone line. Cell phones don't work in much of the west. Another inconvenience was having hotel / motel reservations that necessitated that we make it to a specific town each night. This stopped me from spending more time with interesting people, seeing some sights, and pursuing some stories. It also caused me to be driving at night and backtracking a lot more than I wanted to. So, we will not make advance reservations for the rest of the trip. The little white convertible was a lot of fun, but we will be in a PT Cruiser the rest of the way. Driving alone is much more difficult as the two-lane roads are not always easy to find.

Many people ask what has been our favorite experience. There are too many wonderful experiences to pick just one, but my favorite day is still Day 18. Barbara's favorite days are Day 2 in Savannah and Day 25 in beautiful San Diego.

There are MANY great sights yet to come. We were really looking forward to North Dakota where we have received many invitations for dinner and pie. We have been scheduled for a lot more newspaper, radio, and TV interviews on the second half of the trip.

I planned to spend the next few days getting the Daily Journal up to date. At least during the times when we weren't babysitting for Miss Madison.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.