Traditionally the Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer holidays here in the old US of A. However, as we happen to reside on Route 66, the holiday never seems to end.
Yesterday morning we kicked off the day by visiting and speaking with Roger Fox and the Ride for Relay gang before they continued their westward journey along Route 66. We find tremendous enjoyment in meeting with the tour groups and individuals that travel through Kingman on their Route 66 adventure but this group is one of the highlights every year.
We find tremendous inspiration in this group. We also are given a very healthy readjustment of our focus, something everyone needs on occasion.
The day was rounded out with a wide array of adventures – trying to recover photo files from a defunct external hard drive, purchasing a new dryer (my repair efforts were not successful as the patient was terminal), a futile attempt to organize the office as it is reaching critical mass resultant of work on the Route 66 atlas, and a buffalo burger barbecue that gave me an opportunity to try out our new barbecue sauce purchased from Fran’s shop in Adrian, Texas. We brought the weekend to a close with a healthy dose of Billy Connolly whose crude but funny humor is often right on the money.
I truly enjoy his perspective on our politically correct society and how it is replacing the vibrancy and color of life with a dull shade of beige. Even though I may not use his exact terminology it is impossible for me not to agree.
Later this week I will be meeting with Sam Murray, the New Zealand rally car champion. The topic of discussion over a healthy dose of barbecue at Redneck’s Southern Pit Barbecue on Beale Street in Kingman will be my possible involvement in the development of a 2014 Route 66 tour sponsored by New Zealand Today magazine.
The following weekend is an opportunity to show my dearest friend how much I appreciate thirty years of support, encouragement, patience, love, assistance, and companionship. As my dearest friend reads the blog later in the day as my editor checking for errors, details cannot be provided.
This will be immediately followed by an evening with our dear friend from Amsterdam, Dries Bessels, and his tour group. As this is his second visit this year we are doubly blessed.
On the evening of the 20th, there will be an organizational meeting for the 2014 Route 66 International Festival. Special guests will be post card collector, Route 66 enthusiast extraordinaire, and all around good guy Mike Ward who has been involved in most festivals since 2000, and Gary from Route 66 Radio who has offered to assist in regard to promotion.
On the 21st it is another Chillin’ on Beale evening. First, however, it will be a day working with Gary on a radio project and a bit of playing tour for Mike and his fascinating wife, Sharon.
Then on the morning of the 25th, we will have our second opportunity of the year to share breakfast with Zdnek Jurasek and his tour group from the Czech Republic. They are enamored with Dora’s Beale Street deli and arrangements are being made to accommodate them.
If everything goes according to schedule (an historical first if it happens) I will be on the road at the first of October. This will be an organizational run for the tour the 2014 Route 66 tour that Sam Murray is developing.
On the evening of the October 17th, I am to speak about the history of Kingman as viewed from Route 66 at the Westerners International dinner in Flagstaff. That Saturday, the 19th, it is another edition of Chillin’ on Beale but this one is tied to a Smithsonian Museum tour that will include me speaking on the development of Route 66 in western Arizona.
With November shaping up to be a very busy month, it looks as though I will again make it through a year without the curse of boredom shadowing our door. Now, lets see if the same can be said about 2014.
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