Finally, all this Internet nightmare is in the past. I start envying everyone in their home never having to deal with a constant moving connection. Sometimes WI FI, sometimes a Dish and now sometimes it will be an Air Card either through an EVDO or 1X… whatever that means! New phone also, give me a year or so and when I finish reading the one inch thick book I will try to dial up your number. Cost? $0… courtesy of Alltel for giving us such mental anguish (right?)… including complementary extra daytime minutes for a few months… they do however know that once I figure out this phone those minutes will have expired. I see this whole connection process as a battle between the different systems. I see it as they have planted some invisible viruses that compete with each other as when the laptop comes to life they try to take over the airwaves… wether they can connect or not! It said right there, at the bottom corner "partially connected"… when really it never was. Trust will have to be acquired again, I always feel that these "things" never really go away, I think they stay embedded somewhere in the heart of this machine for ever. How did I ever manage to get on this path… what happened to the good old days?

We are in Mississippi now, same as our first stop 15 months or so ago when we left for this Journey, at Walt’s and Paulette’s. Seems like yesterday really, such little has changed and so much has at the same time. We are both truthfully pretty exhausted as we left Booth yesterday at 4am avoiding the morning Houston traffic, and also this morning for a ride with the Louisiana Dual Sport Riders which lasted all day, a great ride finishing with a Buffet dinner making me realize how much my riding jacket suddenly had shrank. Worth mentioning and also worth visiting if you are in the vicinity of Booth, Texas, is the George Ranch which we stopped by, two days in a row.

The Ranch has been present on the 23000 acres for 180 years, since the Anglo Pioneers came to the bend in the Brazos river then and settled as part of Stephen F. Austin’s Colony. This actually was Mexico then and Nancy Jones, the wife of the Jone’s Farm founder planted the first oak tree on the plain that was their new home. The Ranch passed on by way of inheritance and coincidence from mother to daughter, and today one can visit as we did the four homes which have been restored on the property. The first one we visited, and my favorite, above, is part of the 1830’s Jones Stock Farm.

Two rooms separated by a breezeway, an upstairs to house the 12 children, it has been rebuilt as an exact replica of the original by one man using hand tools and the same cypress wood as used 180 years ago. Two interpreters have the "job" of explaining the details that go along with the big cabin, also hand crafting utensils and attending to the garden, everything done the same way it was! We talked for quite a while, and even though they don’t get paid a lot, they love their job. No high tech path here, no Internet, no television or I Pod… what other job would you find where you would work in the same fashion as they did a couple hundred years ago!… including dressing up as they did, complete with dirt and some torn clothes! I know I would like it… going to work as such with Spirit 5 days a week and play with the old tools, making bowls, planting vegetables and talking to the tourists.

They were actually going to turn the garden the next day and start spring planting, and as I was leaving they gave me enough vegetables for us to make a nice salad that night, all organic of course, no tasty pesticides a couple hundred years ago!

I had a great time in that house, if I ever built one it would be just about the same floor plan, including the outside kitchen, would need to add an indoor bathroom, but the breezeway set north and south was prefect was a constant breeze. The Jones then started adding more structures surrounding the cabin. A "Dogtrot Cabin" to attend to their livestock, a CornCrib to store their crop, a Hen House to protect the chickens from predators, a Hog Pen, a Hay and Tool Barn, a Smokehouse and of course the Summer Hearth which is the outdoor kitchen.

It would take about a week or more to see it all, including the 1860’s house, the 1895 and 1930 with all their peripheral structures. Spirit was waiting in the sidecar as dogs are not allowed inside the property, lucky for him many of the employees visited him, but I generally will not leave him alone too long. There are more pictures and facts of the next homes which I will post next time as it was then the ride back to Carl and Colette’s home… the always pleasant and tasty dinner we had every night filled with great conversations.

… including feeding the chickens! We had such a great time in Booth, maybe some day as the thought keeps crossing my mind, Spirit and I can get a piece of land as such, put up a cabin and do the same thing a couple months a year as a home base. Have travelers stop by as they did and as Walt and Paulette do here including many others that we have met on this Journey. It has become harder and harder to find free land to camp on safely and it would be so great to have a network of places to go where one can feel safe, have a great time visiting the area’s attractions, have a few meals… take a real long hot shower. A thought…

We even witnessed this great sunset one night with the moon barely up… the transition for us on our way to Atlanta has sure been made easy and pleasant by so many on our route. We thank them all again. It just does not get any better.

"Spirited Doggie Treats" and "Art Cards"…. Dogs cannot live of Love and food alone… they need treats, they like treats… we know! Put Spirit to work!

We are always under deep appreciation toward the readers that have send in a contribution helping this website’s expenditures. For those who have not, continue enjoying the site, pictures, recipes, and if you feel it’s worth $1 a month, the contribution button is above, snail mail is below…

Ara Gureghian   853 Vanderbilt Beach Rd #245   Naples, Fl 34108

You be well…. Ara & Spirit

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 4:19 am and is filed under travel, spirituality, pit bull, sidecar, motorcycle, cooking, photography, riding, homeless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.