For Petes sake, is there really 14 pages concerning my trip?! What the heck could we of been talking about? Wintertime.............it can be boring at times I suppose.

Here I sit in Virginia MN at a super 8. Been driving 14 hours from Detroit. I had planned on driving the rest of the way tonight (yea right) so I could go in a day early. Harlan mentioned that if I could get there by 8 A.M. I could get a lift. But so much for the plans of mice and men. Harlan called me about 7 PM and informed me that a fire on Murdock would prevent me from entering tomorrow. Rats!

Oh well, probably for the better. I could use the rest. I had hoped to do a month and had, in fact, already packed for a month but I ended up with a wee bit of work to do and thought about cancelling the whole thing. Instead I have shortened the entire venture to 16 days. I couldn't deal with changing the trip and am still planning on the whole enchilada. It's sort of like a romance that you know might end badly but you can't help yourself.

Back is still not right and the knee is untested but I'm still committed to getting dropped off with no option for retreat. It sounds nutty I know. Especially now that I have halved my time frame and without having ever set foot in the place. My Ace in the whole was that I had a month. Now that's off the table. The trip has suddenly become a challenging adventure.............just what the doctor ordered.