Microtel Smyrna

... the cautionary tales and gathered together....finally...to offer support to St Thomas's church and school in Kagiso.

The many months of planning have not fully prepared all of us to really grasp where we are going
and what we are going to see. Some things just have to be experienced. Some in the group are reverent and intentional, some are quietly curious and some are just plain wide eyed wondering
what we ...

A three-hour layover in Atlanta

Chris wants a final blog entry – a summary, a list of favorites. Yuck. Instead, a few sights and sounds still in my head:

- A teeming mass of eight-year old Spanish school girls in the Prado, identically dressed in red plaid skirts, white blouses and navy blue cardigans ...

Before I depart for the great land to the South, I made the wise decision to remove the Great Dane that had taken up residence on top of my head.
Now sleek, cool, and low maintenance, my new do is ready for prime time, and skipping regularly scheduled showers...
This is how I look before the trip, hopefully my appearance does not alter too much, and I return much the same, with all limbs intact.

Stay tuned for my first days in Bs As...

Cheers

Mikey James Barnett

... since our luggage is all
cooped up in storage at the airport. Here's to wearing the same
clothes for 48 hours. Yum.
Needless to say we aren't off to the best start. Small price to pay
for 10 weeks in paradise I guess. My plus to staying in America for
one more night is now I get to watch The Hills and The City. Guilty
pleasure that I'm going to miss while away.
Wish us luck with our travels tomorrow!
Sent from my iPhone

... table and welder. He's a snowbird that goes from Minnesota in the summer, where he's a handyman at a campground, to the south where he travels around during the colder weather. What an inspiration and an example of living a full, active and physical life into ones later years.

Now our plans are to go to Heifer International Global Village and Teaching Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas. But that's another story.......................

If you haven't noticed already, I’ve been leaving out an incredible amount of personal material in these entries….well, with the ways of the internet nowadays, any information posted can and most likely will be used against you (if you think in paranoid ways such as mine), so best to be politically correct and not post too much personal information.

Don’t worry, as promised, I’ll post my bumps in the road…

My ...

... in 2007!!).

So why did this time feel more unfamiliar and different? I guess the longer time you spend away from the place you grew up, you don't have the same feelings for it as before. Atlanta used to be the place where I'd go on the weekends to hang out with friends and feel all high-and-mighty in a nightclub drinking my 10 dollar cocktail...the streets of Georgia Tech used to feel so familiar, as I've ...

... comfort rather than basic needs…”the bigger the better” seems to be more appropriate for American standards…

Compared to our tiny 2 room apartment, staying in my parents’ house seemed to be living in a castle. Staying in my parents’ house felt awkward, I felt more comfortable in my tiny two room apartment, half kitchen built into the living room…I guess you could say that we have our kitchen, living room, dining ...

... attractions, act as though I know a lot about the city, etc.

When he asked me "what is there to see in Atlanta?", all I could think of was "the world of Coke, the Aquarium, midtown..." The world of Coke didn't really interest him that much (I went to the original back in 2000 when first moving here, NOT worth it...), and since he's a vegetarian, seeing the Aquarium kind of goes against his principles of ...

... Nashville - where our friends Ruth Ann and Frank are waiting for us. Word from Ruth Ann and Frank is that there are no cell signals at Natchez Trace, so we may be incommunicado for a few days. We'll stay there until Wednesday, when we'll move both motorhomes (Malone's and ours) to the infield of Nashville Motor Speedway. Next Saturday is an ARCA and a Busch Race there, and it should be great ...