Week 3 – Central Time Zone

In the Central time zone I went from early summer back to late winter somehow missing spring.
The weather in New Orleans was delightful, great for walking and even a little biking around the French Quarter. This section of town must have been nice to live in in its heyday but many of the historic houses now seem empty. I love the tall windows and shutters to let breezes in on those hot muggy days. It is now touristy and Bourbon Street pubs seem somewhat seedy. I accidentally walked onto a street scene that was being filmed for a Selma Hayek film. I’m sure I didn’t make the cut.
The Garden District has many lovely large houses under old oak trees. This district was for the rich. Many poor sections ravaged by the hurricane are visible coming into town. Also visible were many adjacent new apartment developments. So was there money available for developers to build anew but not for residents to rebuild? Hmmm?
Natchez, Mississippi was a very wealthy town in the early to mid 1800s, home to many of the plantation owners who built their wealth on the back of slaves. A small US National Historical Park site there, chronicles the life of a black barber who was a financially successful free slave slave owner.
Leaving Natchez I traveled about 20 miles on the beautiful 444 mile long National Park Service Natchez Trace Parkway (http://www.nps.gov/natr/ ) which runs to Nashville, TN. I saw only trees and meadows with wild turkeys and raccoons playing in the meadows.
In Hot Springs, Arkansas I was the guest of former APLer Dave and his wife Dianne. Dave showed me the remnants and glory of the hot spring days of yore when the rich, famous and infamous, came to town for “the cure”. A nice hike and much pleasant conversation was a welcome change from solitary driving.
In Kansas City, Missouri, I visited with old high school buddy, Charlie. Now known to his over 100 admirers by his “nom de pub”, Capt. Hoohah, he is a local savant and daily philosphical e-mail chronicler of nightly events at Mike’s Pub (http://mikestavernkc.com/) and the world beyond. The Capt. showed me the finer points of KC.
On Earth Day, I visited the eco-village Dancing Rabbit located in north-east Missouri (http://www.dancingrabbit.org). One of the founders of this village is the son of former neighbors in Columbia. My purpose for visiting was to get a feel for this type of community. Although much information is given on the website, which I’ve followed with some interest over the last ten years, one must be there to get a good feel for the people, their interactions, and their daily routine.
In my one day there I observed beautiful, committed, single and partnered individuals enjoying themselves communally, eating well, laughing, working the houses and gardens and spending time teaching and interacting with about half dozen potential new members.
The community consists of about 40, mostly young, adults and 12 children. The children seemed happy, friendly, and smart. The village is located on about 240 acres of former agricultural land and contains 3 lakes. The soil is rich for good gardening. The difficult concept of sustainability is practiced, as best as possible, in everyday life. The village produces all of its own electricity and water and organically manages its wastes. Interactions with the outside world are largely by internet and bicycle to the nearby Mennonite community.
The community’s mission statement, significantly to me, recognizes the importance of a sustainable human population, achievable peaceably worldwide through negative population growth by furthering the one child per couple concept.
In Omaha I had a “farewell to Omaha” dinner with sister-in-law Beth and her daughter Loren who will be joining her husband in a new home in Sheboygan, Wisconsin after school finishes.
From Omaha I headed west, preferring the secondary roads to the interstate for getting a feel of the real Nebraska. The roads were good and empty making it easy to observe the decaying old farm communities, the many large, muddy, and stinking cattle feed lots and the long coal trains traveling east. These “unit trains” are over 100 cars and over a mile long. Every 20 miles or so another one came down the track. A little research showed that about 80 unit trains come from the Powder River Basin area every day. Each of the hopper cars holds 100 tons of coal which contains enough energy to produce 20 minutes of electricity (http://smtc.uwyo.edu/coal/trains/unit.asp). Doing a little computation shows that the coal in each unit train will eventually contribute around 36,000 tons of CO2 toward global warming. This is definitely not a sustainable process.
Several unit trains of container cars stopped on the tracks in close proximity to each other was due to a derailment. It is amazing how much heavy equipment it takes to lift the cars back onto the tracks and to repair the damaged track.

Week 2: Florida – You Can’t Go Back

After arriving on this continent from Germany, I lived for two years in Florida. It was 1952 and I was 11, an impressionable age. I had to learn English, joined the Boy Scouts, and loved the simple life and nature that Florida offered then. We lived north of Eau Gallie with two-lane US 1 between our house and the Indian River. Our air was conditioned by day and night breezes and the fishing was only a few yards away.
Today, our former house is gone, replaced by a bridge across the Indian River. US 1 is four lanes surrounded by ugly development. Eau Gallie has been swallowed up by Melbourne and is no longer on the map. Gone is the Oleander Hotel where my parents went dancing on weekends while I listened to the crackling of the high voltage of the neon signs and watched the bugs get zapped. Only the elementary school and the Ice Plant remain and fortunately, the memory of those times.
Florida has become the playground for developers. I drove on several six lane roads to nowhere beckoning developers to develop the surrounding land, often orange groves and cattle farms. Most of the seashore on the east and west side of Florida has been developed into one glob of faceless communities.
Route A1A must be the richest stretch of road in the US. It is also the most relaxing to drive at 25, 35 mph, if you’ve got the time. The alternatives are the crowded, stressful 70 mph interstate highways chock full of trucks and ex-New Yorkers. Most main roads are bordered by seemingly endless alternations of decaying and new shopping centers.
The Orlando area reminds me of Los Angeles in its traffic. Though if you live in the old part of town where friends John and Anna Scolero live, life seems more livable and less hectic with much variety. Why, it’s downright vibrant (for those following the Columbia downtown development). The new downtown Orlando, however, seems like a mini Manhattan.
Miami Beach seems to have avoided the out-of-place 50 story condos visible in some communities north of it. New condo buildings in South Beach are more limited in height. Most importantly, the Art Deco neighborhood remains and keeps attracting admirers who want to walk, shop, dine or just swim in the clear ocean waters near a clean beach. East coast beaches, in general, if not cleaned periodically are full of plastic and beverage container litter. Our old college days spring fling destination, Jupiter Island, though still little changed, now has a disappointingly littered seashore.
On the west coast I visited old college buddy Julius and good looker and cooker wife Steffi and was given a real-estate tour in their area. I was amazed at the fine construction quality and low prizes compared to Howard County. I also learned from first-hand experience how it is to listen to your house and boat getting damaged while hurricane Charley passes overhead.
After pitching my tent in a state campground on the western end of the Everglades on a Thursday, I proceeded to the restored old part of Naples in search of some food. What a surreal scene I found: busy streets of pedestrians listening to musicians in six separate locations, dozens of outdoor dining opportunities, a parade of upscale cars and a homogeneous white crowd of average age 65. Was this a Disney Land for the upper income AARP crowd?
Friends and interesting hosts, Carolyn and Owen Thompson, recently retired, showed me their housing choices in Indian Rocks north of St. Pete Beach. This area is a pleasant mix of old and new but surprisingly more expensive than Punta Gorda. Of course being near your children is priceless.
A real disappointment was the planned and much talked-about community of Seaside near Destin. I thought that it was a real community but it turned out to be a second home community with ½ of the 600 homes, rentals and only 15 year-around residents. The houses are small, cute, and closely spaced and start at 1 million ($s that is). At least the beach and the ocean are ideal.
So what’s good about Florida? It still has great, if not as abundant wildlife, a great State Park system, and many clearly marked or separate bicycle lanes. It may be paradise for some, but I’m still looking.

Week1

On the morning of departure it drizzled and the early tree blossoms looked like pink haze through the mist. Shortly, however, the rain stopped and the air was clear and fresh, if one doesn’t consider the Diesel exhaust of the truck trains heading somewhere, both ways, on Interstate 81. The Appalachians were still quite gray and winterish looking and greenery in Asheville, NC was no further along than in Columbia.
I had a nice visit with lovely daughter Stefanie and nice husband Brantley who live in a small and beautifully self-restored house in the liberal artist enclave of Asheville. We took a challenging hike on a wonderful day on the Boogerman Trail in the Smokey Mtns. We saw clean streams and the remnants of a homestead on a high plateau where a family once eaked out a living, manually clearing the field of large boulders and building an impressive stone wall near their log home. This in contrast to the unsustainable, oversized homes being built nearly everywhere on steep slopes with views by the nouveau riche class created by lower taxes on the upper income brackets. These homes generally sit above valleys of poverty.
In Georgia I was graced by the invitation to experience a small town weekend by in-laws George and Charlene Milligan. George, a city councilman of his community of 2200 showed me the good and the bad. The good was a real sense of community including all races eating at the downtown restaurant after church. Church there, as in most other places of worship, was a segregated event. The Baptist Pastor was exceptional for such a small community. The community suffered from the same affliction as most other small ones: flight to the cities since the 60’s. Many once beautiful houses are abandoned and have become a problem for the community. Prices for beautiful homes on large lots are available for under 100K with fixer uppers available for a small fraction thereof. Talk about affordable housing! We need to provide incentives to move people back to the country.
A late afternoon arrival in lovely Plains, GA made for a brief visit to former President Jimmy Carter’s home and visitor center. Just as with the Milligans, the Carters also feel a strong sense of community and have stayed or returned their roots.
As the trip progressed through Georgia I spotted the first palm trees, many beef herds of all colors grazing sometimes along with goats, many pecan groves and most often pine forest farms. The secondary roads were in great shape and largely empty and the 55 mph speed limit made for relaxing driving and great mileage, 54 mpg.

Gearing up and Powering Down

With age I’ve learned to plan. So planning I must now do, unlike in the days of my more impetuous youth.

The hiking boots were 20 years old with some bad lacing hardware. The tent was family size for sleeping four. Good hiking pants were needed, etc. Finding good replacements was easily accomplished by a trip to the “local” (50 miles round trip) REI.

The more complex and time-consuming part was powering down. The more obvious powering down of all power-sucking electronic devices was easily accomplished. The prior decision to turn off the heat was not met with enthusiasms by my indoor plant buddies, especially the orchid. Thus the heat was left on at 60 degrees. My plant buddies also reminded me that they will still need feeding and Susan agreed to take care of their aqua needs in exchange for more future Johnnydog sitting.

The more complex task was turning off the media monsters as they would have no one to persuade to buy more junk with obnoxious ads, to scare with blown-out-of-proportion tales of murder, to selectively feed “news” to, to call for urgent $ contributions for and against one thing or another, etc. etc. It was to be a time of quiet and peace while I was gone, something I should not have to pay for.

The TV and the Internet were supplied by Comcast cable. One cannot turn off the TV without turning off the Internet and one cannot keep the email address without having Internet services. One also cannot suspend services for more than 3 months unless you’re a snowbird (like summer birds don’t exist?). Thus it was time to cut the cable and business ties with Comcast and save some $s. Hello Gmail!

That left the phone communication which was supplied by Vonage and required an Internet connection for home use. Fortunately, the voice mail feature of Vonage will forward an e-mail to you whenever a voice mail is waiting and one can then retrieve an audio file for listening. No telephone ringing, no need to answer right away. But how do I answer? This is where Skype comes in. This PC application allows me to originate cheap phone calls to anywhere in the world as long as I have high speed Internet access. Thus people cannot reach me directly and I am only able to respond, Internet access permitting. Sounds like a recipe for peace to me. I’ve never been a fan of a real cell phone as it represents to me an electronic leash around my personhood.

Having accomplished all of the above, including cancelling Vonage and changing from paper to electronic payments and banking, I then packed my camping gear, bicycle, and all other needs into my 2004 Prius and managed to embark upon this adventure at 10 AM on April 1. In the rush to leave, I totally forgot to pull an April Fool’s joke on someone.