When I arrived in Gatlinburg yesterday to make my to the resort it was pretty early in the afternoon. I knew my parents would be out and about, most likely sight seeing in the Smoky Mountains. So I had plenty of time to kill. The plan was to surprise them at their room and be waiting outside when they pulled up. Well, of course today in the world of panic and fear I wasn’t able to get their room number, so I had to wait in the lobby to kill time. …

Set alarm for 6am CST. Go to bed at 9pm in Gulfport, MS. Too many thoughts on the mind, constantly rolling around in bed. When I finally do fall asleep I’m woken up every 30 minutes by the train that’s only a couple hundred feet behind my bed and shakes the entire camping trailer. It’s like trying to sleep in an earthquake. Before I know it’s 2am with hardly any sleep. …

The website has been stagnant. According to the site I have been in Hammond, LA for a long time! When in fact I didn’t actually spend a single night in Hammond, it was Ponchatoula where I was staying. So now I am here in Gatlinburg, TN with my parents. We’re staying at the Mountain Loft Resort and this is the only glimpse of a vacation I’ve had on the trip. I am realizing how much I needed this. …

I’m a lucky guy, as fortunate as they come. Once again I’m at a brand new location, a place I have never been, that place is the Gulf Coast, a wonderfully unique region of the United States. Since I’ve been back from Hawaii I’ve had out all of my winter clothes, hoodies, and packed away my sandals. Yesterday I had my sandals back on as I walked along the Gulf Coast beach here in Gulfport. …

There is a lot of content from Nebraska City. So without writing for the rest of the day I’ll try to give a summary. And this is stuff from over a month ago already. Wednesday El Portal Mexican Restaurant – I joined Jeanna and Dean on Wednesday for their weekly margarita and conversation. It’s an awesome tradition they have, more people should do this, especially across generations. It’s a very admirable friendship and one of the strongest friendships I’ve seen on the trip. …

Gather ‘round everyone, it’s story time! The stories that make it to the blog are only a small portion of what goes on during the trip. If I were to document everything to the finest detail and every story I would need a full day of writing for every day of the trip. For now I will at least play ketchup with this short from Nebraska City that is long overdue. …

Back home there is an elderly couple, Clayton and Marcella, who have been very supportive of me and my trip. Actually, Marcella used to pass on Clayton’s old vintage suits and hats onto me during high school. Every once in a while I would dress the part. During the winters Clayton and Marcella would come to Gulfport, MS. For those of you in the South you might not know what a snowbird is, but that is someone form the North who migrates to the South for warmer weather, usually Florida. …

Louisiana is a wrap. Perhaps it started out on a rough note, maybe a few, but now that it’s time to leave Ponchatoula I know that I have some amazing friends that I can’t wait to come back and visit someday. To close out my Louisiana experience I was treated to some more fine cuisine, crawfish pie. Now I tried fresh crawfish just a few days ago and wasn’t too sure of what I thought. …

The last time I had a hair cut was the same morning that I first presented to the folks at Chrysler, that day was as nervous as I have ever been in life. Looking back at the photos from the last six months you can notice that I’ve been on the road for a while as my hair is getting longer in each photo. Well through the trip I’ve been taking a few photos of myself to document just that using Photo Booth on my MacBook, very handy. …

For starters… one of my favorite songs relavent to the trip is a song called “Another White Dash” by Butterfly Boucher, the lyrics read: There is Something exciting about leaving everything behind There is something Deep and pulling leaving everything behind Something about having everthing You think you’ll ever need Sitting in the seat next to you How true that is, everything I need right next to me for a year. …