Maybe that's where it came from...

Today's weather was crummy, and it's going to get worse. Lots of rain tomorrow, then much colder. Gee, it's not even officially winter yet.
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I've started rereading an old favorite book. I got it for next-to-nothing for my Kindle. Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, was written in the fall of 1960 and published in 1961. We first read it sometime in the 1960s, and it was one of Pink's favorites, too. Each of the girls had to read it in high school during the 1970s, and generally hated it.

I've read about one-third of it now, and am loving every word. The book is a narrative of Steinbeck's camping trip across the country with his standard poodle, Charley, for a companion. He spent 3 months going 10,000 miles - from Long Island to California. Not too much of the interstate system was completed then and, of course, no cell phones, car phones, computers, GPSs, etc.

At that time, we were not even dreaming of the kind of travel we've done in our lifetimes. But looking back, Steinbeck's trip is exactly the kind of travel we love to do. After all, in 1998, over 3 1/2 months, we drove from Tennessee to California to Alaska to Vancouver Island, and back to Tennessee. We drove over 16,000 miles in our truck, plus the unmeasured miles on ferries. (You can see photos from the trip in our Photo Album - clickable on the right.)

We loved the book for reasons we didn't even comprehend at the time. If you haven't read this one, give it a look. And, girls - give it another shot.
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