2011 Road Dog Odyssey

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog It was during my visit to Calgary that Doug Symington and D’Arcy Norman suggested I make some tour t-shirts for my 2011 Road Odyssey — but I never really got around to it. I thought I would end up with some ugly cut and past photoshop mish mosh of dog heads and maps. Given that I have now the very first CogDog 2011 Odyssey t-shirt, a iron on transfer prototype designed for me by Giulia, it was time (tonight) to make them available on Cafe Press. This is my first time set up, but think I have everything in order, including a decent selection of men’s and women’s styles, colors, etc. You can find them all at http://www.cafepress.com/cogdog/8404539 – and all set for sale at cost, no profiteering here. The CogDog Swag is now open, a bit late for holiday [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog The StoryBox project will end its gathering of media at the end of 2011, so there is still time to share any media before the time capsule closes- see http://cogdogblog.com/storybox for ways you can drop media files. During my 15,000 mile, 5 month 2 country, 29 state/province travels I collected a Shareskian “wack sock” of media- 1230 image, video, audio, document files: audio recordings: 127 documents: 18 music: 41 photos: 891 videos: 147 remixes: 6 And there is room for more! But to keep it true to the time capsule concept, the last media I will add will have to get to me by Dec 31, 2011 (at 12:59:59) What happens then? My plan is to return all of this content online, in a yet to be created web site that would allow, ideally, people to add tags/descriptions to help [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by fliegender It was March 17 of 2011 when I described my [quasi] plan to jump out into the great wide open, which was most filled by the 5 month/15,000 mile road odyssey, but started with some reflection time and travel before the road trip, and capped by a 2 week jaunt to Australia. Today was a day that began in the future with the first of 3 flights our of Melbourne, Australia and ended with a drive up to Strawberry in the snow — and this day seems to smolder as my body and mind remain on other time, while logic suggests sleep should be happening now (the clock reads 2:59 AM). Giulia suggested returning to that March blog post to match my expectations to the now, and this seems like a place to start, though I predict few [...]

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant was a book that Barbara Ganley recommended when I was in the first legs of my road odyssey, because of its setting in Wyoming where I was traversing. Of course, I had to follow the suggestion, and had downloaded it to my Kindle on my iPad… where it languished until months later, where I finished it in south Florida, the opposite of rural Wyoming in almost every measure. Alexandra Fuller’s writing is both as sparse and vast as the setting of this story- it is a true story involving the tragic accident that took a young man’s life. It is interesting in that the “story” is almost an anticlimactic bit at the near end- in fact the whole book is more or less the building of the character, through a vignette of smaller stories. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog The loop is now closed, having returned home on Friday, November 18– this is one day past week 22. I have to say that doing these weekly updates were a blast and saved me the trouble of writing actual blog posts. Number of days on the road: 148 Miles Driven: 15,035 — That is an average of 101 per day, Longest driving Day: the last one 620 miles from Amarillo, TX to Strawberry, AZ. Most Recent 1000 mile marker: 15,000 miles, south of Winslow AZ Number of States/Provinces driven in: 29: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delawre, New Jersey, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of [...]

I do not have the fancy red shoes, but I do have a kick-ass red pickup truck! cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog My 2011 Road Odyssey closed its lop last night when I got home at 6:30pm to my home in Strawberry, AZ, 15,030 miles and 5 months since I left in late June. This last bit was a manic sprint, covering 2200 miles from Fort Myers Florida starting Monday morning. I do not highly recommend that travel mode. It was my choice, driven my the fact I signed up to do a trip to Australia starting.. next friday. Parked in my driveway, I did a short ds106radio broadcast of the coming home moment, walking in my door, and also archived it on my phone recorder. Coming Home I was just about 30 miles up the road, the place where the AZ 87 heading south [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Hambo The travel is wearing on me. I am not complaining (much). This whole experience is wrapped up in the gift of my god mother’s memory for making it posible, and the stream of memories of connections made, re-made, made new by people I have visited. Yet, my energy is slipping, and I find myself focused on the finish line. I am again, like ost of this trip, driven by the schedule. If I can do one more long push (620) miles, I can get home tomorrow night from tonight’s stop in Amarillo. The last 3 days have been 500+ miles days on average. There is a reason, as a week from tomorrow, I am off for Australia for a 2 week trip, and I’d like as much refresh time at home as possible. i am stopping less for [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog What could be more appropriate for this trip than Kerouac? I picked this book up… on the road? and started reading it on a beach in Virginia. I violated my rule of writing my review before reading any others; I usually want to make sure I am giving my own impression- but I lapsed and peeked at what the folks wrote at Goodreads. Like most things reviewed, the range is from “THIS SUCKS” to “This is teh awesome”. This is probably the worst book I have ever finished, and I’m forever indebted to the deeply personality-disordered college professor who assigned it, because if it hadn’t been for that class I never would’ve gotten through, and I gotta tell you, this is the book I love to hate. I deeply cherish but don’t know that I fully agree with Truman Capote’s [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of days on the road: 140 Miles Driven: 12,675 Most Recent 1000 mile marker: 12,000 miles, south of Atlanta, GA on October 30 Number of States/Provinces driven in: 24 Number of US/Canadian Border Crossings: 5 Status of #occupycanada: currently occupying! Money spent on gas: $3512 Cheapest gas price: $3.08/gallon (Fountain Inn, SC). Highest gas price: $5.64/gallon (CA$1.39/liter) (Wawa, ON). Scariest things in trip: clowns. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Photos posted: 2792 (that is an average of 19.9 per day) Worst Drivers in the Universe: South Florida where the rules are go as slow as you want in all lanes. Most scenic foliage drive: Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina. Second was highway 58 in southwest Virginia Best alternative to Interstate- US 19, the Georgia-Florida Parkway. Number of books read: 13 (Most recent: Jack Kerouac [...]

What started out as another set of family pictures for the Dear Photograph (or Return to the Scene of the Crime) ds106 assignment sprawls a bit more as I find connection points– let’s see by the end if they lead anywhere. Perhaps a path. Made of bricks. It has to do with bricks and paths and making the latter our of the former. I start with this photo of my Dad doing what he enjoyed, an outside task with his hands. Here he is laying some brick for a walkway outside the patio of the house in Florida (or how they say it here, outside the “lanai”). Look at that smile. And he is wearing an ASU hat I sent him (which I found this week in the garage). cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Dear Photograph, I see you Dad, carefully making a brick walkway. [...]