When I took my first trip of discovery, there was no personal computer, no internet, no cellphone, and no digital photography. It was a time of 20 cent/gal gasoline, expensive long distance phone calls, few interstate roads, the Vietnam misadventure, and only 200 million people in the US. Now we have Skype to make international phone calls from anywhere where we can find free WiFi using our laptops, we have GPS to get us anywhere in our hybrid cars, we are in another misdaventure known as Iraq and we now have 303 million people to feed and house. Some things have gotten better, some haven't changed and some have gotten worse.
My first trip was a marvelous discovery of places of beauty and of wonderful people. It was an experience that was imprinted in my then young mind for many years; no need of written record being necessary. But now with an older mind I have all of this cool technology available to help keep a record of my experiences and am able to easily share them in almost real-time. How can I not take advantage of this opportunity? Here's hoping that, after daily feeding of all of this technology, I'll still have time to smell the wildflowers and to enjoy what beauty remains before 150 million more people will want to share it in the next 40 years, energy availability permitting.
The adventure starts April 1, no kidding.
This blog is about my rediscovery of the US 42 years after my first trip with 4 weeks of time, a black VW Beetle, $200, and no particular plan except "gonna go out west". It was marvelous - the beauty, the people, the surprises.
