PERHAM, MINNESOTA (TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2009)

Slept in again!
There were days (long, long time ago) when I started work at 5:00, and here I’m snoozing past 8:00 two days out of three…
My, oh my, as my mom would say, what’s this world coming to?
I feel it’s almost regrettable to sleep in: Mornings fly by… Lunch is upon you before you’re really ready for it, and you’ve wasted a lot of good time….
(Hey! I’m trying to give myself a guilt feeling here, OK?
…..Don’t think it’s working!)
Over to reality…
The wind didn’t abate over night. Matter of fact, it’s been blowing briskly (sometimes very gusty), since Sunday… It’s still warm, in the upper 70s and into the 80s, during the day, so we’ve been walking, and biking, but not swimming, since (I believe, but not verified) the pool is warmed by the sun.
We’ve spent time getting acquainted with the town, driving around residential areas, as well as walking the down town core streets, sticking our heads into various boutiques and shops of all sorts…. Nice place, with a population of about 2,800 (I think I heard), mostly engaged in agriculture, but, talking to a native the other day, there’s evidently some manufacturing going on as well…
I can’t remember what, though …. Sorry! (look it up yourself)
Luanne and I have spent quite some time, over the last few days, going over maps, routes, and time schedules for our continued journey across this great land, and we have come to the conclusion that we don’t have enough time to really see and do what we had in mind when we first started out… That might seem a bit weird to you, especially since we set our time frame for this trip at one year…. But look…
Here we’re knocking on August already, and we have absolutely must visits to our sons, in Kansas (Aug. 9) and Indiana (Aug. 21) staked out, which gives us about a week (after we leave here) to check out Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska…
Please note that our goal is to visit as many states as possible on this trip, but we also have specific interests to tend to; like seeing New England in Fall Colors, and meeting friends and relatives who would like to spend some time with us on the Atlantic Coast. 　
Also, please note that both Luanne and I are deadly afraid of tornados and hurricanes, and don’t want to be anywhere close to a location which might have a chance to be visited by one of them, so the timing is crucial, isn‘t it?
I understand tornado season is basically over at the end of July, so we’re willing to take the chance of going to Kansas first… We’ll probably spend a week, then have a week to roam through another few states before ending up in Indiana…
Do you see where this is going?
By the time we’re out of Indiana, it’s September, and we have how many states left to go before Father Winter blows cold stuff down our neckline?
A bunch!
Way too many, if you want to spend some quality time in each place, which I really do, but am afraid won’t happen before we‘re forced South by the weather.
We have reservations in Orchard Beach, Maine, for October 4 through 11... Hopefully, we’ll have decent weather after that, so our trip down the coast to Florida won’t be a soaker.
That‘s enough for tonight… Catch you tomorrow.