Day Eighteen: "Not bad, not bad at all."

As we plan a day indoors due to heavy rains forecast for the area, this is a good opportunity to recap the trip for those who have not been following along daily (or even for those who have).  The following is a list of the "big events" that occurred daily during the past three weeks.

10/01:  Oklahoma City bombing memorial (OKC, OK)
10/02:  Eisenhower Presidential Library/Museum  (Abilene, KS)
10/03: Truman Presidential Library/Museum (Independence, MO); Gateway Arch; Museum of Westward Expansion (St. Louis, MO)
10/04:  Lincoln Home & Lincoln Museum (Springfield, IL)
10/05:  Hoover Presidential Library/Museum (West Branch, IO)
10/06:  Mall of America (St. Paul, MN)
10/07:  Voyageur National Park (International Falls, MN)
10/08:  Travel only (Voyageur N.P. to Michigami Shores, MI)
10/09:  Day hikes, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, MI; backpacking trek to Lake Superior
10/10:  Backpacking trek, con't; Au Sable Lighthouse, Pictured Rocks, MI
10/11:  Ford Presidential Museum (Grand Rapids, MI)
10/12:  President Hayes home/museum (Fremont, OH); President Harding home & memorial (Marion, OH)
10/13:  Mast General Store (Valle Crucis, NC)
10/14:  Carter Presidential Library/Museum (Atlanta, GA); MLK Historical Site, including museum, birthplace, burial site, & Ebeneezer Baptist Church (Atlanta, GA)
10/15:  President FDR's "Little White House" (Warm Springs, GA)
10/16:  Everglades National Park (South FL)
10/17:  Clearwater Marine Aquarium & Winter, the dolphin (Clearwater, FL)

We've traveled through 19 states (3 more to go on our return to TX), and 8 state capitals, visited 5 (of 12) National Archive Presidential Libraries/Museums, 4 additional presidential historic sites, 6 presidential gravesites, toured/hiked/camped in 3 national parks (from the Canadian border to the tip of the Florida peninsula), seen 4 of the 5 Great Lakes (camping on the shores of two of them), marveled at America's largest shopping mall, encountered and interacted with scores of people from various regions of our country and even different foreign countries, and met one of America's biggest box office "stars," logging more than 6,000 miles in the process.  Academically, we've been busy, too, listening (during travel time) to one work of fiction by David Baldachi and a biography of Winston Churchill (audio books) and reading (on our Nooks) both "A Farewell to Arms" and "The Old Man and the Sea," both by Ernest Hemingway; this in addition to keeping up with our normal workload in our five core subjects.  In the words of Bill Pullman to Will Smith at the end of "Independence Day," after a truly unbelievable mission has been successfully completed, "not bad . . . not bad at all."  This is so appropriate it bears repeating . . . not bad, Veritas, not bad at all.