She’s at 199293. That’s just 707 miles to go.

I figure a couple of trips to Ely and some regular driving around and we’ll be there in about a month (maybe two).

I guess it’s time to start saving for a new car.

Speaking of millage, my brother and two of his friends are taking their first (of hopefully many) big sailing trips down the east coast. Here’s a video of them leaving New York. Hopefully he will have more videos up soon.

They left on Friday. Here’s where they were at a little after 7:00am this morning.

Derek's Location Monday June 20th, 7:23am

We had been warned to watch out for some of the neighborhood cats. In England, Eliot and Kristine explained to us, the rules/customs about how animals are handled are a lot different. Cats can not be declawed and are basically given free reign. Eliot and Kristine have a cat door for Beck their main cat. They also kind of have a second cat, “Big Cat”, they pretty sure he’s leading a double life though and has another family somewhere else. “Big cat” likes to sleep in the guest bed Heather and Elysia were sleeping in, he is shy around people he doesn’t know though and if he showed up he did not wake anyone up. I might have had to deal with “Orange Cat”, apparently “he” is rarely seen by anyone, but he likes to sleep on the short couch in the living room (I was sleeping on the long one) based on the hair that is left behind. No sign of him though, if “Orange Cat” stopped by he was not loud enough to wake me up.

Eliot made us a delicious breakfast of french toast. Kristine made us some delicious english tea.

Around noon all 5 of us headed into Cambridge (about a 45 minute drive). We started out doing a little shopping. My legs/feet were not doing well and had not been for the last couple of days. I got to ask Eliot for medical advice for the first time. He prescribed either new shoes or insoles. I was thinking about getting new shoes before I left, then after Elysia reminded me my shoes were starting to fall apart I figured we should do some shoe shopping first. We did a little shoe shopping at the mall in Cambridge, turns out my UK shoe size is 12, and it also turns out most UK shoe stores do not stock that size. We found some good insoles though, I put them in my shoes and my feet immediately started feeling better.

We also looked around the market a little bit, sampled some ostrich meat and went into “The Eagle” for a drink. Cambridge was a beautiful town. Lots of beautiful old buildings, ivy, beautiful lawns, flowers every where, a small river with a bunch of little bridges. Pretty much how one would imagine Cambridge should look.

Eliot, Kristine and Jachin

After walking around for a while and dithering about what we wanted to eat we went to Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant “Jamie’s Italian”. I had a rabbit and pasta dish (I do not think I had ever had rabbit before). The waitress warned me when I ordered it that it was “free range” which means it had been shot, which meant I could find some bullets in my meat. I did not find any bullets and it was delicious. I have a lot more sympathy for Elmer Fud now. I tried some of the other dishes we had ordered. It was all very good.

Eliot and Kristine were really excited to take us to another place for dessert that served “Sticky Toffy Pudding”. They spent the whole day running up to dessert telling us how it was pretty much the best thing ever and how eating it would be life changing. I’m not a big enough foodie to say this with much confidence but they were right. After having tasted it I can not think of a dessert I would say was better.

Then we went back to to Eliot and Kristen’s house in Beck Row, chilled out for a bit and went to bed.

Waking up with my new quilt.

Got back on the road and almost immediately left the freeway and headed north into Alabama. The goal, was of course the town of Jachin Alabama.

7 Miles to Jachin

I found it after only have to back track once. Jachin Alabama can only be described as “there”, if you use “there” very loosely.

At first I thought the whole town was this abandoned gas station.

The Jachin General Store.

Then I found a cemetery, which was almost entirely made up of 3 families, each with their own little sections. The one thing it confirmed was that the town was probably started my Masons (something I suspect, the mason’s probably being the most likey group to use the name Jachin for a town).

Outside the Jachin General Store.

Then I found the post office. I was run by a very nice and helpfully lady, who seemed very surprised to have someone she didn’t recognize walk in. As a souvenir I mailed a letter to my self. It didn’t look like I was going to find a gift shop in Jachin.

The other part of the building the post office was in looked like the office for a lumber operation that was going on across the road. That must be the areas biggest busineess, or this is just the time of year for it. I passed dozens of trunks hauling cut trees.

Perhaps the most telling moment of just what sort of a town Jachin is, was when I asked one of the guys coming out of the office if there were any good place to eat around here. He laughed, and said, my best bet was a town called Butler (about 10 miles away).

Anyway, it was sad to see the Jachin Grocery, closed and in such rough shape, but the whole area was very nice, even with the logging. Lots of hills, pine trees, cows and red dirt.

I got back on the road, cross over into Mississippi and over lunch I got the news I had expected:

LAUNCH UPDATE: Thursday, Nov. 4 at 2:12 pm.

Launch of space shuttle Discovery is now targeted for Friday, November 5 at 3:04 p.m. ET. Existing STS-133 launch tickets and vehicle placards remain valid for the launch attempt on Friday, November 5.

PLEASE NOTE ARRIVAL TIMES: For Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and NASA Causeway launch ticket holders, please arrive one and a half hours earlier than the time originally listed on your placard. For Astronaut Hall of Fame ticket holders, please arrive no later than 10:00 a.m.

Mission managers will meet at 5:00 a.m. Friday to evaluate weather conditions for fueling of the external tank.

Please check back for updates to the launch status.

Bottom line, not trying to wait for the shuttle another day or two was right thing to do, leaving Florida on Friday afternoon, and trying to make it back to Minnesota for work on Monday would have been brutal.

After cutting across Mississippi I went through Memphis and then into Arkansas. My goal for the night was my friend’s Isaac and Ally’s place in a town called Meta, MO. Once I got past Joesboro, AK, I lost the data service on my cell phone which I was using to do all my navigation. This was something I probably should have expected, going into the Ozarks, but it hadn’t occurred to me. For a while I was worried, the route though the mountains looks complicated when I had glanced at it over lunch. Suddenly it occurred to me I could stop at a gas station and buy a “map”. That almost got me there, but Meta was too small a town to show up on the Missouri map, so I had to call Isaac and just head for the closest town that was on the map.

The drive through the Ozarks was great. It actually did not turn out to be that difficult of a route to follow and the roads were in great condition. It was dark, so I did not get much for nice views, but all the hills and curves were a lot of fun. Especially when I got close to Meta and got off the main highway. Those roads got really crazy. It was like being on a roller coaster. Isaac told me later, that it doesn’t take much bad winter weather to close down the roads. I kept thinking the 50mph speed limit on some of the turns (normally 65) sounded more like dares then speed limits.

On US-63 near the Arkansas/Missouri border Carol chalked up her first confirmed kill. She hit a deer a couple of years ago that probably died, but it was just a glancing blow so it’s possible it survived. This was a raccoon. I remember thinking:

“That’s strange, there’s a reflector in the middle of my lane.”
“Oh wait, it’s two reflectors.”
“Oh, it’s a raccoon. Come on, move it buddy I’m not going to swerve for you.”

For some reason in the last few seconds before impact I named him Robby. I’m afraid Robby the raccoon was not very alert, smart or fast. So I figure this was probably about as good an ending as Robby could have hoped for. I think it would have been pretty painless, The initial bumper would have render him unconscious, then the second, more squishy sounding bump less then a second later somewhere under Carol would have ensured the end of his suffering.

I started driving around Chicago and about half way around I stopped or some lunch at Potbelly. There was a guy playing guitar (that must be something they do at most Potbellies durring lunch time). He seemed pretty good. I decided to tip him and get one of his free CDs after he played a Toad the Wet Sprocket song. I don’t listen to that band enough and it’s rare to hear someone else playing their music. (No idea if the CD is any good, the CD/DVD player on my laptop stopped working a long time ago, oh well I guess I find out when I get back.)

For travel nothing too exciting happened yesterday. I traveled from Madison WI to Southbend IN. The one thing I always appreciate about that part of the trip is the toll road (I-90) in Indiana between Chicago and Southbend. I’ve driven on it several times and this might sound strange but it always seems to be one of the nicest highways I’ve ever driven on. The pavement is good. There are no billboards. There is very limited accesses. The whole thing is lined with hills and trees with little farms every so often. These all might seem like little things, but taken together it’s a nice and dramatic change change from Chicago. Also the fall colors were pretty good. It was the tail end of the colors, I’ll bet the drive would have been amazing a week or so ago. As I go further south the fall colors should keep getting better and better.

Fall colors zipping by on I-90.

Finally I pulled into Southbend where I meet my Grandma Dorinda and Cousin Matthew at Grammy’s nursing home. We hung out there until it was Grammy’s bed time then headed back to Grandma Dorinda’s place where we (mostly Grandma) made an amazing dinner. The highlight for me was the chicken casserole with rice, mushrooms and artichokes.

This particular Christmas took place at the new family HQ, at YMCA Camp Fitch in North Springfield Pennsylvania.

My parents and sisters actually moved in two days before I arrived. Being involved in more moves than I care to tally up, I was very impressed with how much of the unpacking was already done and how much it already felt like a Rupe home.

The house is pretty nice. It is on the edge of camp but it is right across the road from the dining hall, and near the main entrance of camp. The director’s residence are part of the same building that has a medical station and the camp store in it. It is also much smaller than the houses we Rupes have grown accustom to, but I believe that is for the better. There are plenty of beds thanks to a hotel like building right next door. Plus with only the twins still living at home, it was a good time to trim some of the extra “stuff”.

Here’s a nice picture of everyone (minus Derek, who was not able to make it “back east” for Christmas and and minus Matillda the dog, who is too short to appear in a picture with everyone else standing up.)