Day 78 -- June 17, 2003 -- Tuesday

We have extended our visit today with son Ryan in San Francisco.

The PT Cruiser went in the shop for brake repair. Ingrid at Midas helped us after Steve at the local Chrysler dealer could promise neither prompt nor courteous service.

Today marked the start of Week 12. 27,178 on the odometer. We racked up 18,113 miles over the first 11 weeks. 66 days on the road with 11 spent writing in Atlanta. So, we averaged right at 275 miles per travel day. 1,005 gallons of gas. The little white car got 20 miles per gallon, but the 4-cylinder PT Cruiser gets just 15 mpg. 23 states so far, though we'd hit several twice. 1,393 towns behind us and about 1,100 ahead. Over 8,000 photos have been taken. We passed only 13 cars in 77 days. We have eaten 73 pieces of pie so far. We have been to three doctors -- one eye injury, one ear problem, and a gastrointestinal disorder. No flat tires so far, though the little white car did eat up one set of tires on the first loop. No significant car problems, though the little brake problem that is being repaired today could have been a big problem if Jiffy Lube hadn't identified it for us. We met well over 1,000 people in the first 77 days. We have given out about 1,200 business cards.

We're on our second case of beads.

I had visited 48 states prior to this trip. We will soon mark off Alaska and North Dakota -- the only two I was missing. I was really looking forward to both Alaska and North Dakota, as was Bozzie Jane.

I spent the day writing. Boz worked on Ryan's place; she has always been everyone's interior decorator.

We went shopping for pie today, but all we could find was overpriced packaged pie at the nearby grocery store. We passed. We again enjoyed outstanding meals from Karen, young Ryan's personal chef.

The Dude has had one of his biggest tour business days ever. He will generate more business this month than he did in all 12 months last year! His biggest problem is that he and his staff just can't even handle the number of phone calls that come in. The phones ring continuously. We may help The Dude set up a Call Center to more efficiently handle what he has built. It is quite a business; we are really proud of him!

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.