Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina

Or to put it another way -- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

A lot of driving, a lot of fog, my pants don't really fit anymore, we are still on schedule.

It took about 10 hours to get from Manhattan to Memphis. Nothing very interesting happened but we did drive on some hilly roads going through the Ozarks. A while ago I asked Jon to look up where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and we learned that her museum house is closed in the winter, but we did get within 1 3/4 miles of the house, which is kind of cool. Someday when we have a chance to travel during the months between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we will get to see all the places that are closed during the other months.

We met my cousin Howard and his wife Sarah and their son Alex at the Memphis Barbecue Co, their favorite barbecue restaurant. I don't know what we were thinking but we ordered the giant sampler that arrived on a garbage can lid. 

Everything was delicious and we ate way too much. They are gracious, generous hosts, Howard never reveals anything about his political beliefs, we talked about our families and the farm and grandchildren and memories. I am probably the only person who would ever say this, but to me Howard looks so much like my mother's cousin Richert, son of Uncle Norman. It was a lovely visit, the last of the cousin stops. Every one of them was worth the drive.

The next day everyone got up early to go to work or hit the road again in the pouring rain. It was warm and very wet. We went south to Oxford MS to see James and Jordan on their recently-established farm. We could see most of it through the windows of their house. They have been farming for a little over a season and there were still some things we could learn from them. James describes himself as always having YouTube in one hand, and a tool in the other. They are in Mississippi because Jordan's grandmother has a lot of land and there was an empty house to fix up and she was willing to let them come to farm. I asked James how it was to be the new guy in the family and he said it was a work in progress -- he has two counts against him: he is male and he is a Yankee. Jordan comes from a line of matriarchs who are business owners. The grandmother is the tractor driver. If they want some tractor work done, she will do it. James probably came to the right farm for his training when he decided to work at PVF for a year. We were very impressed by all the infrastructure and adaptations and work-arounds they have managed. Their whole market load crams into a Honda Fit. That can't last long. But they do grow a lot of lettuce and leafy stuff. There was a picture of some giant watermelons that barely fit into the Fit.

After a little while on I-40, I asked Jon if we could switch to a smaller road. It was raining, foggy, and there were so many big trucks. When we got onto lesser highway, it was much nicer. We got to John and Rebecca's house on the hill at about 4:30 and had a long evening of catching up with all the BBH gossip, and then I think John and Jon had a lot of sports talk while Rebecca and I talked about a million things that I can barely remember. All I know is that she is working really hard doing a five year project that she got a big grant for, John is very busy in local politics and they are both immersed in the ongoing project of getting a new cohousing community established. It is super ambitious to start a cohousing project from scratch, from finding the land to finding the people to getting it all designed to rounding up the money to getting it built. We had so many advantages when we started to build Blueberry Hill (land, family) and we were only in our 30s. These folks are thirty years older and extremely busy.

This morning we went with John to see the land that will hopefully one day become Burns Village and Farm. He wanted us to tell him if he had missed anything. Like our site, it is rolling and hilly, with trees. But their road access will be much easier and better. I made some suggestions about the farm part. We didn't have anything particularly insightful to say about the cohousing part -- Jack and Patricia have been consulting with them about that.

We forgot to get a picture of Rebecca from the night before.

Next stop: Parnassus Books.  I think this is at least our third visit to this independent bookstore. It is twice as big as the last time we were here. A very nice place. I have been waiting to buy the latest Ann Patchett novel from her store. I wanted a signed copy and there was a whole wall full. 

It was only about five hours from Nashville to Asheville and it wasn't raining. I-40 was fine today.  We got to David and Bernice's by 7:00, crossing back into Eastern Standard Time. They are in good spirits, good health, they see their two grandsons a lot and that is wonderful, they are trying to figure out where they want to spend the next part of their lives. Where they live right now might not be the answer. Dave is still hoping to build his dream house, and that could happen. Honestly, everyone is so ambitious. I keep thinking it is time to ask people what they are planning/thinking about for the next phase of life and they are thinking about building and moving and creating community, or changing jobs (that was Howard). I am always trying to learn what people want to do when they get old, but no one seems to be quite that old yet.