Time's drawing near to add another trip to my travelogue. Within the next week I'll be on the road with the RV again beginning with a cross continental jaunt to the old homestead in New Hampshire. Mom's sold the house, and this is my last chance to see it (and claim some of the contents). There'll also be some final memorials for my father and plenty of family and friends will be gathering there for late July.

In August, my sister Louise and I will quick-step with some of our homestead loot down to her new home in South Carolina. There'll be a stop or two along the way to visit friends. We'll also spend some time in the 'burbs of Lakewood, New Jersey which, I'm ambivalent to admit, is where I spent 8 years of my young life. Somebody set The Way-Back Machine for 1967, please.

From the Carolinas I'll be heading to New Orleans where the meaty part of the journey begins. There I'll shut down the warp drive and cruise ahead on half impulse engines. Before me will lie three of America's great highways and I intend to milk them for every tidbit I can get. The idea is to document the highways themselves and, through them, the unfolding of America in the 20th Century, now quickly drawing to a close.

So, it'll be Highway 61-the blues highway-from New Orleans to Chicago, perhaps as far as Thunder Bay, Ontario. Then, from Chicago I'll trace whatever's left of fabled Route 66, The Mother Road once followed by Tom Joad. Route 66 ends in Los Angeles, where I'll pick up I-395 which also terminates there. This road-bed turns North East into the Nevada desert, passing near Death Valley and through Reno before heading into the Volcano country of Eastern Oregon and Washington state and terminating at the Canadian border just South of Rossland, British Columbia, a day's drive from home in Vancouver.

Don't expect me back in Vancouver for five or six months. As usual, I'll be contactable by email.

So, happy trails...

Patrick.