Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado!

That's right, another gargantuan post! Not really, more of just a quick update with a commitment for photos and more dialogue to come.

After spending some time with Bob the cat in Missouri, we headed due north - not due west, which would have put us in Denver - to our friends Michelle, George and James'. They are in Northfield, Minnesota, about 40 miles from the twin cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Somewhat cold, but not the -25 of the previous week, thank goodness - Black Betty (our car) would not have appreciated that after our 4,000 mile journey! Happy times once again with lovely people and a terrific 15 month old called James. We sledded a little bit but mostly just stayed inside reading and letting the little man entertain! We spent most of Monday wandering around Minneapolis and then back for the evening before shoving off Tuesday for Rapid City, South Dakota.

What a nice little town that was. Dennis was skeptical of too much of a tourist trap, but the town was quaint and had some nice charm. Wednesday morning we moved on to spend a little while at Mount Rushmore. Pretty cool in mid-week during the winter, we really had the whole place to ourselves!

We drove the rest of the day through Wyoming (finding the Sierra Trading Post outlet only 100 miles outside of Denver) and landed at our hotel at 7 pm.

We are off to find an apartment - more juicy details later. (Sorry, Iowa natives - we only had time to stop at a Subway in your fair state.)

Dennis and Jen

The Katy Trail is over 200 miles long across Missouri, a former railway along the Missouri River, criscrossing the Lewis and Clark journeyline. This is a great photo of us with Bill and Hollis. The Stolz family is winning the visit contest, as Aunt Emma of early photo is Bill's, and Claudia and Bill are also in a previous photo. Once again, old family friends - the kind where the only difference is that we don't share the same bloodline - otherwise they'll always be family.

This one's for you, Aunt Eve - part of the Lewis and Clark journey from the Katy Trail In Rocheport, Missouri - our next stop with friends Bill and Hollis.

After the house visit downtown, we were compelled to visit his tomb on the edge of town. Amazing, as it was only the second Presidential gravesite that we had visited, next to JFK in Arlington. What a wonderful tribute to a U.S. leader

Lincoln's portion of the master suite. The small desk near center was actually used by him, thought to have been the place that he wrote some important speeches while serving in the Illinois Legislature.

After Decatur, Illinois, only an hour due west was Springfield Illinois - the Capital and home of the only property ever owned by President Lincoln. This is the exterior of the house that he and family occupied until their move to Washington.

After Cincinnati we made a bee line for Aunt Eve and Uncle Dean. What a terrific time of sharing stories of past, present and future.

Always fun to take some parting shots with our hosts. This one is of course with Jen's folks John and Irene in Cincinnati.

Oops, for chronological accuracy, we spent an evening with our close friends Ross, Crystal, Travis and sister Joy at the Ross' in northern KY.

Ahh, a taste of New York..... In Cincinnati? That's right, the Brooklyn Bridge was designed by Roebling, who built a mini version right along the Ohio in Cincinnati. I guess that's a good reason for the 29 photos of the bridge. You think we're homesick just yet???!!

The moms in Cincy after a long day at the Underground Railroad Museum

The Weekend in Cincinnati

Hey, all -

We've stayed in one greater metropolitan area for the past 48 hours is the sum of this update. Somehow we manage to pack-in all that two humans can possibly manage in such little time. Today, for instance, we had a leisurely morning and then headed down to the National Underground Rail Road Freedom Center (http://www.freedomcenter.org/) with Mom and Dad Kramer, Mom Wine and sista J-Lo.

We also celebrated Jen's new MPA degree with food! Her parents treated everyone to dinner at the Fish Market, an excellent new restaurant in Newport, Kentucky (in the proper vernacular here it would be either Newport-on-the-levy or Newport-in-the-levy, I am not sure - regardless, the restaurant is in a mall type structure on the now flooded Ohio River). For dessert, we took home some Cold Stone ice cream (including the cake batter flavor).

We'll put up more pictures tomorrow. Thanks for all of your good wishes, support, emails, calls and comments.

Jen and Dennis

Publish or Perish!!!

Sometimes it takes some time (hey, is that onomatopoeia?) to get segments on the web, but we're back! We've had some happy days, and we're headed out to Illinois on Tuesday, followed by more friends in Missouri and Minnesota for next weekend. We'll update with more about our Ohio fun before we shove off Tuesday morning, so stay tuned.

As always, thanks for watching, and to help control the animal population, be sure to have your pets spayed or neutered.

And a nice shot of mom and dad Stolz with Jen. Always a wonderful visit.

Friday night we dropped in on another adopted family, the Stolz's. Dennis has a long history with the family and we continue to stop in for hello's when we can. Far left is big Bill, next is Tony Pence, an old friend of Dennis' from high school who is back in town stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force base, followed by his girl friend Sara, Caitlin and her daughter Lily, mom Stolz (a.k.a. grandma, Claudia), and finally the familiar Jen and Den.

Brittany loves to be in front of the camera too!

What a treat it is to visit with Brittany and Candis when we stop into Dayton. This is Candis with Dennis' mom, Sue at a local favorite - Marion's Pizza.

After our brief visit with Indiana family, we spent a couple of days in Dayton with Dennis' mom. Wright Patterson Air Force Museum is now the home of four Presidential planes and a host of other smaller Presidential flying machines, as seen in the foreground. The one sticking its nose in at the tail to the left is where LBJ was sworn in after President Kennedy's assassination, and was updated until retired in 1990. The chrome plane in the background was the second used for Presidential purposes, the Columbine, of Eisenhower's tenure. It was amazing to have the opportunity to walk through the four originals!

This photo is of Dennis' cousin Ronnie, like a brother growing up, and his son Michael. If you've ever heard of a story of Dennis riding pigs, this is where it all began!

We our longest day of driving on Tuesday, starting with breakfast in a small town in Tennessee where our server came up to us after sitting down and asked if we were the ones from New York! Man, word travels fast in small towns! We landed in Indianapolis that night and spent a day and a half visiting family and friends. This photo is of Dennis' aunt Phyllis and uncle Jim. On a much sadder note, we found out within the last week that our adopted grandpa Johnson had passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 87. We paid a visit to grandma Johnson and shared terrific stories of such a wonderful family.

We left Tennessee on Tuesday morning and headed straight north into Virginia to visit the Ralph Stanley Mountain Music Museum in Clinchville. We had seen a PBS special on it, as it had just opened in October of last year. A wonderful museum tucked in the mountains of Virginia, and worth a drive to visit (at least for those of us who love Bluegrass music and what Ralph has done for it - in particular since O Brother Where Art Thou).

Headed through VA, landing in Indiana?

That's right, tomorrow morning we will drive north into Virginia into Clinchville, VA to the Ralph Stanley museum. Ralph is Godlike in Clinchville and is a true legend in Bluegrass music. He was brought into the spotlight a few years ago with his song Man of Constant Sorrow from the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou", although he has been making music for most of his 80+ years of life.
Anyway, after that we will head north of the Mason Dixon and into Indiana to visit family there for a couple of days before hitting Ohio for the weekend with the parents.
Keep watching, we'll try to get more up in the next couple of days, although we're headed into dial-up land, so no promises until Thursday!

Our final night in Tennessee with Lance and Heather.

Although each leg of the trip has been full of fun, we just had to post this one. Lance and Heather have a farm in Tennessee and they asked us to help out getting some segments done on their fence. It would have been great if we could have finished the last bit up to the barn, as the piece of land is for their horses. Some work, but rewarding that we were able to contribute to their beautiful place.

Spending quality time with Andy and Kate in Chapel Hill.

Here we are with Steve and Jen in Norfolk, VA- day 1 of our trip.

Here we are about to set off with our added space! We happily drove to Tennessee today feeling much safer with the weight spread out over more than the rear axle, not to mention we could now see out of the back window! Yay Yakima!

Here it is - 16 cubic feet of rooftop luxury! We were sure to pick out a comfortable one that Jen could ride in for more leg room during her naps.
We left Chapel Hill today after lunchtime and met our friends Lance and Heather in Asheville, N.C. - only a four hour drive - for dinner. It was great catching up, and then we followed them back to Johnson City, TN where we'll stay until Tuesday and head up to Indiana to start a week and a half of family visiting.
During our drive we found ourselves talking about how wonderful of friends we have in so many places. Jen and Steve in Norfolk are old friends from college who have relocated to Norfolk and have built very happy lives there. Andy and Kate successfully left NYC after over a decade of city-life, and are doing fine in North Carolina. And Lance and Heather have a wonderful farm in east Tennessee and are surviving quite well despite being Democrats in an extremely conservative community. All these things are showing us that it is possible to take appropriate risks and stay true to who you are.
Day after day we smile and say 'thanks' to our gracious hosts and continue to wonder how we are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives.

UNC Chapel Hill Tar Heels

Greetings from North Carolina -

No, our map isn't leading us astray...we are taking our time getting out to Denver by visiting friends that can provide therapy during our move from New York City. We are hanging out with our friends Andy and Kate who both moved from NYC four years ago and survived!

More pictures tomorrow. Look forward to seeing additions to our current home. We were able to add another 16 cubic feet to our space!

Jen and Dennis

Right now we are hanging out in a hotel room in DC learning how to use the remote to our digital camera...

And we are off to Denver - first stop DC. Here is a picture of our car, Black Betty, who is packed to the brim.

We are close to being on our way...here is a shot of the truck that is taking our stuff from Brooklyn to Denver and the guys who packed it.

Dennis and Jen in Brooklyn

A Go-Bot reunion

Here are members of our volleyball team, the Go-Bots. We met in Little Italy for a reunion over dinner. From left to right are Lynnsue, Dennis, David, Tom, Jen and Jen. Kris and Mel, other members we were able to meet up with will be posted soon.