Strange Reconnoiterings

So these are the states I crossed on my walkabout:



create your own visited states map

And this is the sum total of ALL the states I have visited:



create your own visited states map

I have been to 43 out of 50 states. While my pathetic foreign travel consists only of Canada and Mexico, at least I can say I have seen much domestically.

Exhausted. Started out about 9:15am this morning from Atlanta, got home at 12:45am. Going to bed in a moment. Last thoughts on the walkabout and some numbers to be posted tomorrow.

Wow does it take forever to cross the great state of Texas! So I left Roswell this morning, and headed out across Route 380. One lane, 65mph for hours. Somewhere along this route I crossed into Texas.

Expected to see this. Oil wells:


What did surprise me about this was just how many I saw while still in NM.

Driving along Route 84 I believe, still not on an interstate, in TX, but approaching I-20. More cool wind farms:


On I-20, and I wish I recalled which Air Force base was next to the highway. But I saw this plane, the second in 5 minutes, cross over ahead of me:


For those of you less familiar with your modern US Air Force planes, that is a B-1 bomber.

Nearly into LA, and the sun is setting. The clouds looked very cool:


Soon I was in Louisiana. I think crossing Texas took me like 9 hours or so. Last exit in TX was over 600, and they do correspond with the mile markers.

Chilling in my hotel now. Pondering gambling in the attached casino, but likely won't. On to Atlanta tomorrow.

So I experienced my 3rd Estrella War. It was a great deal of fun, once again, though this time Timmur happened to be King of Artemesia. Too cool.

So I decided this was a goal destination for my walkabout, and arrived on Wednesday, and stayed til yesterday afternoon. I got to spend some time with friends I don't see all that often, and made some new friends, too. In particular, Cat, the wife of Don Tarkesh. She's very cool, and I can hardly wait to meet her other half. :-)

In addition, Edmund and Jael were there, which was pretty cool. We three were the Eastern Rapier Army, and represented our Kingdom well, I do believe. I had the opportunity to help command the Artemesian fencers, which was quite the honor...we won Artemesia its first Rapier war point.

Poor Edmund, unfortunately, got hurt, so he chose to not fence Saturday. Instead, he went out and about - taking my camera along. He got some pretty cool photos.

A shot of the site:


Lucan and Jana, King and Queen of the East:


Me fencing Rowan:


Me and my Artemesian friends - Rowan, Cat and Elyas:


I'll do another post with some pictures I took.

It was grey, and some clouds were having their way with us this morning...but I decided to set out on a hike anyhow.

So I trekked to Boynton Canyon, the first hike I took on my first trip to Sedona 4 years ago.

Round trip, into the canyon and then back, is a little more than 5 miles, after you count the detours to climb around points I am sure are not meant to be tread upon.

Taking a look into the canyon this morning:


This is an example of some of the path itself:


After what seemed like an eternity, I reached the head of the canyon:


A look back down the canyon:


Finally the sky cleared, and I slowly worked my way back - I was hurting, between the shifting weather, and yesterday's 3.5 mile hike, my feet, ankles and knees were none too happy. But this is a great shot down the canyon:


I was completely wiped out following my hike, so I did something utterly mundane, but necessary - laundry. That out of the way, I have plenty of time tomorrow to stop by Scottsdale, en route to Estrella War.

This may be my last post til after Estrella. I want to thank everyone for your great comments, and hope to have some great event pictures when I start my return trip home.

I drove around the entire southern rim of the Grand Canyon this morning. I have tons more photos. I'll leave you with this last one for now.