gone'splorin

A very long day today. From Madison, Wisconsin to Pierre (they pronounce it Pear), South Dakota. Yeah, look at the map. Going to bed now, early to rise to see the Badlands at dawn. More tomorrow. Night. Night.

Heading into Wisconsin

This morning was four states ago and feels like a lot longer.  Since leaving Ann Arbor, Michigan, we have been through Indiana, Illinois and now here we are in Wisconsin.  On the way we saw Gary, Indiana

Gary, IN

Out transplanted friends

which, let’s just say, is a shadow of its former self, Chicago where Casey and Soozy had a fierce run down the beach along the shores of Lake Michigan

Blustery on Lake Michigan today

and we stopped just outside Chicago to have lunch with our friends David and Jovan that Marci  fixed up on a first date in 2000 at the East Coast Grill.  They just celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary!

We’re now past the halfway point and I’m no longer worried about the weather.  Everything looks good for a late sunday or early monday arrival except a solid plan for where we’re going to watch Tom (Brady)vs Tim (Tebow)!  Tomorrow we’ll make South Dakota and we’re both a bit surprised at how easy this trip has been.  Not to jinx it, but so far, so good!

Casey and Soozy have been real troopers. They have adapted to life on the road and have enjoyed staying in a new hotel everynight. Marci  wonders if they think we will be living this way for ever. She predicts that  they will sleep for weeks straight once we finally arrive in our new winter home.

We appreciate the comments from y’all and just want to say “keep’em coming” so we know you’re out there!  If there’s anything you want to know or any  news that you want to share from home, let us know.

Late December back in…’11.

So you remember we were headed to Ohio? We left Wilkes-Barre bright and early. Frankly, nothing keeping us there. And we set the nav unit to Cleveland. I realllly wanted to find Liz Lemon’s house! By the time we approached Cleveland it was only 2pm and we were still happy to press on. So we looked at the map and saw Toledo on the way. You know, where Corporal Kinger grew up, home of the Mudhens! Just then, a Pretenders song came on the radio and it was karma that we should spend the night in Ohio. Then we saw it. A legendary town just an hour away with the promise of fun…Ann Arbor.

We wanted the perfect Ann Arbor experience so we called our favorite Ann Arborite, Aini Lesley, and she hooked us up with some great ideas. The restaurant was Vinology which turned out to be spectacular! Marci had fresh tuna rolled in falafel (yes!) and I had a delicious skirt steak. We washed it down with a ’06 Bandol. Yum.

Aini also told us about The Ark, Ann Arbor’s local great music club. Playing tonight was Delbert McClinton, but it was sold out. damn! I tried to get tickets through the local broker and Craigslist to no avail. Oh well.

After dinner we stopped in to the local coffee shop which was a few doors down from The Ark. We walked over. We opened the front door and heard the music. “C’mon!” we walked down the hall and into the venue. No one stopped us until we knelt down to watch. The woman tapping my shoulder followed me out into the hall where I explained we were on our way from Boston to Wyoming and heard about the show, took a detour and here we are! She said, “this is your lucky day, follow me.” She found us two great seats and wished us merry Christmas. A great show to top off our evening in Ann Arbor. Put this place on your list!

Tomorrow it’s Chicago for lunch with our old friend Jovan and tomorrow night in Madison, Wisconsin…I think!

I’ve had some questions about just what it takes to get ready to leave for a 2,500 mile drive into the jaws of winter and be away from home for three months.  Well, I don’t really know!   But here’s what we’re doing.

The ride to Jackson Hole is between 2,200-2,500 miles depending upon the route we take.  The best route which is both the shortest and the most scenic, takes us through Chicago and up into South Dakota.  Of course, that’s where we can hit major snow storms.  That’s why today I was at Direct Tire for a fresh set of Nokian Hakkapelitta‘s.  Say that three times fast!

As you can see, we also added a Thule Ascent cargo box. This will hold our ski boot bags, some of the more fragile items we’ll take and dog food.  It’s interesting that there will be more food for the dogs in the car than for the people.  Priorities.

The trip will take 8 or 9 days and while we’re traveling in the Q5, 6 boxes of stuff will be traveling by freight truck.  We used uship.com to find a high value shipper to move our clothing and stuff we can’t live for three months without.  While we’re on the road, we’ll use intellicast.com for their on the ground snow amounts on a national map to help us plan the next day’s route.

Each afternoon we’ll call the folks at bringfido.com who specializes in pet-friendly hotel reservations.  They’ll make sure we have warm and comfy accommodations for the four of us.  Right now we’re in packing and prep mode.  but like Wille said, “can’t wait to get on the road again.”

You’ll be hearin’ from us!

Heading out for three months is major.  Gotta bring, like, everything.  Snow tires on the car.  Check.  Blanket for the dogs.  Check.  Someone to collect the mail.  Check.  The list is endless and thank g-d Marci is organized.

We leave bright and early on December 13th.  We’ll take snaps from the road and let you know how the food is.  Can’t wait for Nebraska…

Yes it’s been several days without wifi so I’ll try to catch you up on how we got from there to here. From the land of Ghandi to Nemo’s front yard. After being mesmerized in Varanasi (I still can’t begin to describe it) we flew back to Delhi, had a brief dinner with Mindy and Roger, said our goodbyes as they got ready to head back to the states and went to bed to get up for a 6am flight to Male, Maldives. Where? The Maldives are a group of very small islands between Sri Lanka and Madagascar. Does that help? All anyone needs to know is that absolutely gorgeous tropical blue color water that you see in the brochures is all they have here. Absolutely fantastic.

We are here to scuba dive and it’s Marci’s very first dive since her certification earlier this year. After arriving in Male, the capital and only airport, we spend the night at a local hotel and arise early to meet up with the motor vessel Sea Queen, our home for the next four nights. Sea Queen has 11 guests aboard including us, plus a crew of two dive masters and five staff. We head out of the channel to our first spot for an easy make sure everyone is okay dive and we get “kitted up” as they say and jump into the water. After a minute of acclimation and adjustment, we make our first decent. Marci is a natural and also, it turns out, a very good luck charm. Within the first six minutes of our first dive I look to my left and there, swimming beside me, is a young whale shark about seven feet long. This is rare, remarkable and damn lucky! Whale sharks are gentle and harmless, they have no teeth and can grow quite large. This youngster is as cute as can be and we are ecstatic! Being a new diver and not a familiar with the local variety, Marci was not so impressed as she just assumed all the fish in the Maldives were this big! (by the way, it took our dive master 400 dives in the Maldives to see his first whale shark)

Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me but we went on to do several dives each day for four days. My underwater photo skills leave much to be desired so I apologize for these pictures but you get the idea. Marci did a fabulous job developing her skills and the group on the boat was full of characters, laughter, sea stories and all around fun. The two critters that one most wants to see here are whale sharks and manta rays. Thanks to our lucky charm, we saw both!

Today we said good bye to the Sea Queen and here we are for our last stop before we return home. A tropical paradise on stilts over the lagoon at the edge of forever. There won’t be much to show or tell over the next few days so I will bid you all a fond adieu with this post. Thank you to all who read, shared and posted with us during this incredible journey we have had. Next week is Thanksgiving and we’ll be back together with our children and will remember all the things that we are thankful for, including you, our friends.

Yesterday we woke up in Khajuraho, today we were enlightened in Varanasi, in between we have been simply overwhelmed by these places as well as the pilgrims in Orchha and the villagers everywhere in between. We are left completely without words to describe the awe we all feel. So today you will have to enjoy some pictures which I only hope can give you one billionth of what we have experienced. Please enjoy.

Mumtaz Mahal was just 39 when she died during delivery of her 14th child. Because all husbands need to be occupied, and Mahal knew she would not survive childbirth, she asked her beloved husband, the emperor, to build her a monument. So deep was his love for her, and so great was his despair, that he dedicated 22 years and 20,000 laborers to the construction of his monument tribute, the Taj Mahal.

It is the nation’s icon and it is indeed magnificent. Surrounded by four minarets constructed to slightly lean outward in case an earthquake knocked them over they won’t hit the monument (really!) the perfectly symmetrical white marble mausoleum might just be the crown jewel of India.

Mahal’s husband the emperor must have had tremendous foresight. How else would he have known that the thousands of pilgrims, tourists and locals that come to pay respect would have the perfect backdrop of the white marble that the Taj Mahal was built from. The colors of the visitors stand out against the marble like precious stones on a swatch of white velvet. The jewels of India visit the Jewel of India During the day the Taj is alive with the movement of visitors flowing through the building and around its terrace. From each of the four identical sides the semi precious stones that form the inlaid detail provide a nuance of color in the glistening stonework.

It is perhaps at dawn, though, that the Taj Mahal is most majestic. With very few visitors yet, the sun peeks over the horizon and casts a warm light at the precise angle to give the dome three dimensionality. No matter what the time of day, nor what angle one views it from, the Taj is magnificent.

Our experience turned out to be much more than we thought it would be. What began as brief glances to and from Indian families visiting the monument, quickly became a full on photo session with us in their family photos and them in ours. The first handshake, the sparkle in their eyes and the obvious need to connect with us was a warm and welcome surprise. With children in our laps and parents at our sides, we exchanged cameras and laughter. It was so much fun!

How fascinating that a Muslim emperor’s monument to his Hindu wife should still be bringing people together after 500 years.

Something is dreadfully wrong. Having traveled over one thousand and five hundred miles through India we are beginning to understand how people move about. It is actually starting to make sense. This scares me.

Moving over one billion people about is not an easy thing and with poor roads and such it isn’t pretty. When we first arrived it was cars going in every direction, dodging bicycles, rickshaws, trucks, motorbikes, pedestrians, dogs, camels and cows. It seemed that everyone had their own road. But it looks all different now.

We no longer shut our eyes when buses and trucks come barreling right at us only to gracefully slip out of the way just before the moment of impact. Travel in India is actually an acrobatic ballet of movement by things of all shapes, sizes and velocities which are so attuned to one another that the entire system of bodies acts as one.

While the lorries weave to the left, the motorbikes with women in full colorful sari effortlessly sitting sidesaddle ease to the right. When a slight gap begins to develop in a long line of traffic a rickshaw moves to fill it. A father pilots a motorbike with his wife, two children, and mother aboard calmly past our van. They seem unfazed at a cargo truck forty feet dead ahead because it then slides a bit to let them pass.

Overstuffed buses speed along motorways pitted with potholes as if on a slalom course. And all the while people are on the roof and hanging off the sides, oblivious to the dangers our western eyes avert.

And they pack themselves into spaces that we cannot imagine. Just yesterday we were told about a twelve per on jeep that was stopped by the police for having fifty two people on it.

And then the train. Grace is what you witness as hundreds of families traveling from their Diwali visits making way toward an arriving train at the station. Thousands off thousands on. No one pushes. No one shoves. The choreography of the movement of the people, each an element in a single organism, communicating throughout itself, is perfectly balanced to make this massive exchange of humanity in three minutes flat.

And throughout it all, a cow looks at us from his spot on the tracks unmoved by it all.