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News
 Thursday, February 1, 2001 |
| Day 23 (Last Day) (Jennifer Alden)
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| We had spent the night at Seema's house. She's a college friend of Lawrence's,
and made us a delicious Indian meal, our first home-cooked meal in three weeks.
(Seema with her children.)
On our way to Northern Virginia we took a small detour to see Lawrence's
school, Virginia Tech. Craig, a fellow student, now
teaches there in the Computer Science department. He showed us the newer
buildings, and we had dinner with his wife Cara before heading out for the very
last leg of our trip.
We arrived in McLean around one in the morning and celebrated with Lawrence's
parents and a bottle of champagne.
We'll stay here and visit Washington, D.C. for two weeks before our flight to
England on the 14th of February.
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| Wednesday, January 31, 2001 |
| Tuesday, January 30, 2001 |
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| We left Orlando for St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in the country. It
was established in 1513 by the Spanish. We only had time to tour the city's
fort, Castillo de San Marcos (their website). The fort, originally built in wood, was
destroyed twice by fire before the queen ordered it rebuilt in masonry. (Lawrence in the guard room.)
The fort is made of shellstone (crushed seashells held together with a natural
mortar). The material was found as-is nearby. The fort was never taken.
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| Monday, January 29, 2001 |
| Days 17 to 20 (Jennifer Alden)
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| We spent the next few days at Disneyworld in Orlando. See the full story.
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| Thursday, January 25, 2001 |
| Day 16 (Lawrence Kesteloot)
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| We went to court, to a safehouse for battered women, to Aunt
Dot and Uncle Oliver's, and to a toy store for some
nephew-spoiling. See the full story.
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| Wednesday, January 24, 2001 |
| Day 15 (Lawrence Kesteloot)
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| We hung out at home, updated the website, and wrote
postcards. (Spectacular Jacksonville
sunset.)
We went to dinner at the Mossfire Grill, a local
Mexican restaurant, with Marjorie's co-worker Brook (and
husband Mark) and friend Donna (and daughter Cassie).
William documented.
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| Tuesday, January 23, 2001 |
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| We drove to Jacksonville, Florida to stay with Jennifer's sister. See the
full story.
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| Monday, January 22, 2001 |
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| We left New Orleans, crossed Mississippi and Alabama, and spent the night in Pensacola, Florida. See the full story.
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| Sunday, January 21, 2001 |
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| We toured New Orleans on a bus, walked through the Garden
District, and spent the evening dining well. See the
full story.
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| Saturday, January 20, 2001 |
| Day 11 (Lawrence Kesteloot)
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| We left Texas, drove through Louisiana, saw plantations, and got to New Orleans.
See the full story.
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| Friday, January 19, 2001 |
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| We took a very nice route through Texas and spent a few hours visiting Austin. See the full story.
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| Thursday, January 18, 2001 |
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| We woke up at Rancho Bianco, where we had been relaxing
day
and
night.
We said
goodbye
to Matt and we were off. We took an alternate route (more dirt roads) across the
Rio
Grande
back to the highway. We retraced our steps through Santa Fe down to Albequerque. There we rejoined with I-40 and headed east to Texas. We pledged to come back
one day and explore New Mexico more thoroughly (and in
warmer weather).
We had planned to spend the night in the
clearly
dangerous
town of Amarillo, in the panhandle of Texas, but by the time
we got there we found we had the energy to keep going. We
drove another three hours to Sweetwater, first stopping in
Lubbock for brisket and ribs at the County Line.
This day might be the least interesting point of our trip.
The Texas panhandle isn't much to look at from I-40 (it
gives new meaning to the word "flat") and we still had the
rest of Texas to get through. (We did see some
pretty
houses at sunset.)
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| Tuesday, January 16, 2001 |
| Days 7 and 8 (Jennifer Alden)
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| We went to the ranch where our friend Matt Newsum lives.
The ranch is completely self-sustainable. See the
full story.
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| Monday, January 15, 2001 |
| Day 6 (Lawrence Kesteloot)
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| We stayed two nights at the Laughing Horse Inn in Taos. We visited the town
plaza and the Rio Grande Gorge. See the full story for
details.
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| Sunday, January 14, 2001 |
| Day 5 (Lawrence Kesteloot)
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| Saturday, January 13, 2001 |
| Day 4 (Lawrence Kesteloot)
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| Friday, January 12, 2001 |
| Day 2 and 3 (Jennifer Alden)
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| We spent the second day relaxing at Alina's, getting pedicures,
and browsing book stores.
On the third day we packed the car, bought two really bad sandwiches (trying to
be healthy, should have gone to McDonald's), and headed for I-40, where we
would spend the next week. The I-40 is a new freeway that parallels the old
Route 66, which runs from Chicago to Los Angeles. It
snowed and rained.
(Lots of interesting clouds.) We drove on to Williams,
an hour into Arizona, just outside the Grand Canyon.
Williams is a town of 2500, whose downtown area splits Route 66 into two
one-way streets for ten short blocks. Williams must have been an
important stop for travellers
on Route 66, but
now it's primarily home to 26 hotels for
Grand Canyon visitors. We paid $20 for a room with a king bed at the Budget
Host Inn.
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| Wednesday, January 10, 2001 |
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| After months of talking and thinking about it, we left San Francisco
on January 10th. We had hoped to get an early start, but by the time we said
goodbye to our roommates and got everything
packed into Lawrence's Subaru, it was almost noon. It was pouring (thank
heaven it hadn't rained three days earlier when we put
everything into storage). We
crossed the Bay Bridge one last time
and were off to
Altadena, near Los Angeles, to visit Jennifer's friend Alina for a couple of
nights. While Jennifer drove down
I-5 in the rain, Lawrence
was busy plotting our course
to Washington, DC.
We couldn't have asked for a warmer welcome at Alina's. She lives in an
adorable cozy cottage away from the main road. We ordered Chinese food, ate by
the fire with her two dogs and
three cats, and slept better than we had in months.
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