At Jake & Jamel's in Alpharetta, Ga

Haven't posted in a LONG time. It's now Oct 31, 2009

Yes, we're still on the trip. We've been in the Atlanta area for 10 nights & we leave tomorrow , Sunday.

We've only encountered 2 days rain so far and both days were here in Atlanta. It's supposed to only be cloudy tomorrow for our departure. We've been so lucky weather wise. (nope , just remembered another day’s rain in Shipshewana IN )

I just got an email from a friend in ABQ where we spent 2 nights back in Sept. She said they had snow which was very unusual at this time of year. But it was beautiful.

For sure we'll NOT be taking I-40 again on our trek back to Hollywood. Because on I-40 are the high altitude cities of Albuquerque and Flagstaff. I do NOT think towing in snow & ice would be a fun thing to do. no no no

I guess from this Atlanta area we'll take Hwy 20 southwestward towards I-10 (the Southern route). This will take us through Birmingham, Al,

Jackson & Shreveport, Mississippi and we've never been to any of these cities before. However, I don't think we'll have much time for those cities because we need to be in Las Vegas NV on Nov 14th. We have tickets for the "So You Think You Dance" show on tour . This is the first trip where we've had a deadline to meet. It will cramp our lack-a-daisical-way of traveling. (Surely I misspelled THAT word!)

We've been able to see lots of beautiful fall colors. That's our reason for traveling in the autumn every year that we can.

Here in front of kids house is a bright red one too. Probably a Maple tree. I do not know one tree from another. INSERT PHOTO later

One Saturday we rode with our kids Jake & Jamel & the two grandsons Oliver age 3 & Cameron age 8 to Helen, Ga about 1 ½ hours north of Alpheretta where they were celebrating Oktoberfest. It was a fun day & the boys behaved very well. We got lots of videos of them.

Another day we went with Jamel &Oli to get his hair cut. That was really entertaining! The place is colorful & lots of fun things to keep the youngsters thoughts away from the haircut itself. As in a Magic trick….misdirection! It usually works. I’ll try to paste a short video here if I remember & can figure out how to do it.

One other day there was a run-for-charity at Cameron’s school. Cameron ran 36 laps as we cheered them all on. Kids everywhere. More videos, of course.

Guess we'll be heading south but really haven't planned where our next stops will be. Thinking about New Orleans in a few days....Joey's never been there.

Oh, I want to remember our last night in Alpheretta,Ga. The neighbors next door to Jake & Jamel are Pakastani-Americans & they invited all of us for a lovely family dinner with them. The food was delicious!!!. A lot like Indian cooking. (Indian is our favorite cuisine of all time anyway )

We had a goat dish which we didn’t expect to like…boy were we wrong about that ….and a chicken dish & Basmati rice and of course naan. We really liked the food but having time to talk with Ayeesha & CamRON about “things” was lovely & interesting. This couple & their 3 girls are truly nice & gentle people.

They made the point that when they like someone it’s an honor to invite them for a home made dinner. Never in a restaurant. Restaurants are for business meetings but not for personal sharing. We felt honored. We learned the correct pronunciation of Basmati rice…the accent should be on the last syllable…basmaTI I’d always misplaced it on the MA. It’s fun to learn!.