Day Twenty-Seven, May 19, 2015

Final Day, May 19, 2015

Bill, Melanie, Tom, John

Tom & Meg

We have done it.  The car was returned with 7,140 miles on it.  Our final day was spent visiting with friends, Melanie and Bill Bickley, who hosted us in CA.  What great hosts feeding us, entertaining us, and being good friends along with Meg Wilson.

Melanie and Bill also provided us with technical and creative consultation on our final music video (see below).

Our final event was meeting Steve Ruppe, Stan Livingston,Valorie Hubbard, Lisa Bove & Renna Killen and daughter Caitlan.  We met in one of the many downtown Olvera Street restaurants.

Steve Ruppe was a friend from F.T. Nicholls High School in New Orleans who now lives in Orange County, CA.  Lisa Bove was another one of Tom's former students from Wichita Southeast High School, and Stan Livingston a friend of Tom's.

John, Tom, Valorie, Stan

Caitlin, Renna, Lisa,Tom

Steve, Tom, John

Tom, John, Valorie, Steve

 Despite some of our followers warnings Tom and John remain best of friends through a journey of 7,140 miles thru 28 states, two oceans and a Gulf, several national parks, historical sites, old theaters, former homes, former schools, various forts, super clean restrooms and super filthy ones, unbelievably generous relatives and friends, casinos, fire pits, canyons, cemeteries, mountain tops, freeways, bridges, toll roads, back roads, courtrooms, pool rooms, truck stops, diners, resorts, beaches. We encountered rain, fog, snow, thunder, lightning clear skies in starlit canyons and cloudy skies oceanside. We docked our rented Hyundai Santa Fe with a cracked windshield, boarded planes at LAX and made it home to ICT & BOS on the day we intended.

  We consumed too much Mexican food (Annette's was best), too much Turkey Raspberry Ice Tea (Tom, not me), pork skins (Tom not me), baked potatoes and pulled pork, French Burnt peanuts (Tom not me), plenty of Hershey's with almonds, popcorn (thanks Ro), packed lunches (thanks Annette), bottled water, diet soda (Me not Tom), hot dogs, hamburgers, seafood, beans, rice, coffee, crackers cheese, wine (ME not Tom), scrambled eggs from Garry's free range chickens, cheetos, bananas, apples, pizza, and involuntarily inhaled cigarette and cigar smoke (thanks every Vegas casino).  We saw a play at the oldest theatre in America (Philadelphia) and a showstopping Las Vegas musical review at the Wynne. We saw eagles, turkey vultures, deer, mountain goats, dogs, cats and dolphins. We were in hospitals, museums, libraries, theatres, bars, hotels, casinos, recreation centers, tourist traps, etc.  It was SPECTACULAR!

We leave you with this last music video professionally produced for us by Bill & Melanie....

https://youtu.be/b9434BoGkNQ