And I Would Drive Three Thousand Miles . . . Just to Read Another Book!

(Actually, I think we've logged closer to four thousand miles on this trip, but that's probably primarily because we've been driving around sixty miles each day in greater Los Angeles).

Where have we been this month? We began July 1 at a hotel in North Carolina (state of miserable traffic) and drove South that morning to see my good friend R. from college. By the 3rd of July we were actually at said college, my alma mater, which has recently changed its name and thus shall not be named.

Here's the Warren A. Hood library, at said school, which has changed remarkably little in the past eleven years since I matriculated:

And the rest of campus, which is greatly altered: (I. and I once got into terrible trouble at summer camp for talking to one another at a stone table that used to be just to the right of the tree in the foreground of this picture. We also had many pleasant conversations at a lovely swing that would also have been in this picture, had the cruel "improvers" of my alma mater not removed it. But I digress).

We visited the office building in which I. spent many hours of his high-school years:

And, of course, the tree where we met--though there was a little debate over exactly which tree. This is my best guess:

After our Jackson jaunt, we headed to wretched hot Bryan, TX for a visit to the Cushing Memorial Library (which holds three annotated copies of Donne's 1633 Poems).  Here's the library:

And here the one semi-attractive building on the entire Texas A&M Campus, which now rivals Cambridge and Birmingham for Most Wretched City of the World Award.

After Bryan (and a desperately hot night of camping at a muggy state park nearby), we ventured forth to Austin. During a morning of meandering we visited this very awesome pipe shop, which had thousands of hand-blown glass pipes beautiful enough to merit space on our eventual mantel. We refrained from purchasing any.

Some friends who live in nearby Round Rock took us to visit water and the infamous Round Rock (not pictured).

For most of our trip, I spent my time on the University of Texas campus, in the Harry Ransome center, which has the most amazing etched glass windows. These literary autographs are just to the left of the main entrance:

After this, we headed to Oklahoma, where we spent a wonderful weekend relaxing and celebrating with some good friends. Well-fed and quite sated with lively conversation, we then hopped onto I-40 and drove west for many, many miles. I. was particularly delighted when a random rest stop proved to have been one he'd visited before; though the bathrooms were vile, the amenities included this lovely old merry-go-round, which he enjoyed mightily.

New Mexico welcomed us with a lovely sunset (better in real life, of course) and Green Chile Cheeseburgers (for which I. had long been craving).

We spent a wonderful week catching up with friends, examining the contents of our storage unit, and resting beside this beautiful pond:

Onward and upward . . . we crossed into California a week later and were shortly surrounded by mountains (trickier to see in the rearview mirror, but they were certainly all around us!).

After three weeks of travels, I reached the lovely Huntington Library in Pasadena, where I have been researching for slightly more than a week. I have yet to dip my toes into the Pacific Ocean, but plan to do so before we venture back across America again.

Wishing all you readers good health, much happiness, and a restful and cool rest-of-summer.