Whew. We didn't leave Charleston until about 3 pm - the amount of stuff we had in the car was too much for my beloved life partner who sorted through every single thing and mailed off about 4 boxes to San Jose directly. Add to this that we (well, my co-parent and my kids) didn't wake until about 9:30 am, and you have trouble. Toss in a spousal spat or two, and well, we just pulled into a Motel 8 at 10:30 pm. The little boy had just fallen asleep, having successfully resisted a nap for seven hours of driving; this person normally being one who only naps when he falls asleep in the car. But not this stimulating yet boring car with a sister to pull hair with ("With" being correct - despite being scolded about every 35 minutes this hair pulling seems to have been developed into some sort of consensual game).
I woke up at 7 am myself, and procured a cup of coffee, a bath and 25 minutes of zazen before the madding crowd joined me.
You can definitely tell that we are out of Maryland; we stopped at a gas station/quick mart in Kentucky, and not only was it in the midst of stunning rolling hills with greener than green grass full of the most majestic horses, standing around the gas station were about 6 guys in cowboy hats and cowboy boots shooting the breeze. The interstate keeps having cuts through the mountains/hills where you can see the varied layers of rock very well; the sandstone just washes away but there is this grayer rock (slate?) that causes big piles of gravel and then very hard white rock that seems to cast of the odd giant bolder but is otherwise not eroding that much.
I've finished my first book of the trip, and am now alternating between "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter and Ian Banks space opera called "The Algebraist." The Hofstadter is very interesting to me, as Gödel, Escher, Bach was the first book that I read that really changed my life in an intellectual way. I am a Strange Loop is a further exposition of how the notion of "I" is really an illusion that arises from our ways of thinking; where GEB used math, art and music as illustrative domains for his theories about thinking, "I am a Strange Loop" uses his own life, his biography, as the domain. So for a fanboy of Hofstadter like myself, it's great (I went to a lecture once and had him autograph my copy of GEB). The Banks book, like all of his that I've read, is very well written, with great technology and hope for the future, with a bit too much love for weaponry, if you know what I mean.
The kids are being pretty good except for the hair pulling and fighting naps. We swam for about 2 hours this morning during the great sorting which I'm sure helped. I only read one story aloud, from Isaac B. Singer's "Stories for Children." I'm not sure what they are doing back there, but my daughter continues to prefer not to journal and not to have access to the DVD player. They seem to alternate talking games where they are talking to legos or dolls or whatever, separately, and then interacting with one another, which seems to involve rapidly alternating laughter, bossiness, politeness and screaming (sometimes happily, sometimes not).
Our goal tomorrow is Carthage MO, some 428 miles away, 6 1/2 hours of driving according to google maps. Should be possible, but it'll put us at about 12 hours in the car, for some reason.
Here's today's route:
--Chris
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