A couple of thoughts on the trip, now that it is over and some time has passed. First, in most ways the trip was a success, all the planning, all the forethought paid off and mostly the whole trip went off as planned. In fact there were no major glitches anywhere along the way. As mentioned before, most of any minor problems were in either taking too much stuff or a small failure of the stuff that was taken. Expectations were kept under control and so that controlled any factor of disappointment. The reaction to the trip was I would repeat it in the blink of an eye, and the American west is a feast for the eyes and experience that you have to have at least once in this life.
Now there will be the question of where do we go next? How soon and what will should I take. Of all the things that were purchased for the trip, the I-phone and the I-pad were the most valuable and used most.( along with the personal “Hot-spot” that replaced Wi-Fi connections that might have not been available.) They replaced physical books, CDs for music, compasses and other items that would be just too much to carry. (Since the big complaint was everything was too heavy or cumbersome.) Even as the trip was in progress things were added to each of the devices that aided in making them even more useful. There were some interesting discoveries also in what was taken along and how they might be organized in the next trips.
The other idea and intent of the trip(s) is the compilation of the blogs along the way into some kind of document such as a book! The individual blogs have been printed out in hard copy so that some kind of editing may take place before any attempt of creating a continuous narrative can be undertaken.
For this round of the journey, the numbered blogs are stopped, there are some additional material that will still need to be included. How this will be accomplished is in question at the present time but will be solved mostly by the material itself and how it will be presented.
billybobrailcom 