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Hi Luvie,

Well here is a short list: Alamo and most of Texas;

In Mobile AL all through the Battleship USS Alabama BB-60 and the USS Drum SS-228;

Went to New Orleans several times including 1 week before Marti Gras and waded in the Mississippi;

Skin-dived in the Atlantic ocean in South Florida and skin-dived at Lithia Springs and snuck out of the spring pond into the Alafie River on advice of a local dive shop;

Full immersion in all five Great Lakes;

2 days in Colonial Williamsburg;

Went through the White house, saw both houses of Congress in session, went through the adjourned Supreme Court and all the sights of our Capital including but not limited to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, The Holocaust Museum and the toughest place to leave once there, Arlington National Cemetery...I wanted to stay there to keep our Nation’s Heroes company in gratitude for their sacrifices;

Top of the World Trade Center, when we had them. If I was in charge we would have rebuilt then to a 1/16th of an inch on the outside and modern on the inside after we decided what enemies were responsible with a 100 or 1,000 or 100,000 lives price per murdered people in that full attack...but I digress. A Knicks game at the Garden just to say I saw something at the Garden, Several Broadway plays courtesy of the Broadway Ticket Development Fund booth in Times Square;

Niagara Falls a few times; The Meteor Crater; Fossil Butte National Park and snuck onto a Wyoming excavated coal seam site when the overburden crane was out of service for maintenance...I got caught and lectured by the crane crew after I went to the seam itself, then the overburden drill rig and finally to the huge walking foot dragline crane. I go places that say KEEP OUT;

Went on Public Transportation and walked a lot through some very notorious places in most big cities. I drove for CR England and the only driver that ventured with me was a mid 20’s driver from Laos or Cambodia that was a Buddhist Monk trainee before he came to the U.S.A.. We went to a taping of the Conan O’Brian show at NBC 30 Rockefeller Plaza and another taped show for free with tickets distributed waiting in line at the TDF. All other drivers thought that criminals attack was certain in New York Boroughs. I explained that on Manhattan, there are residents wearing $20,000 dollars of clothing and jewelry walking the streets on 5th avenue and no criminal would bother them because they obviously have no valuables.

That was not the case in New Orleans where during Marti Gras I parked at the I-10 Marti Gras Truck Stop on Tuesday morning one week before Fat Tuesday and walked the 1-1/2 miles down Elysian Fields Ave to the French Quarter where the Quarter had all streets blocked so no vehicles allowed for the full-on party for Marti Gras. I stopped and talked with residents on their door stoops as I leisurely made my way to the Quarter. After watching several Crews parade, including the Crew of Pegasus it was time to go back to my truck. The only sober people there seemed to be me and the N.O.P.D., who held court in all the roped off intersections. That’s where I mentioned that I had walked to the Quarter down Elysian Fields Ave that morning and was ready to walk back at about 10:00 or so.

The police there told me New Orleans was then the murder capital of the U.S. and that I would surely get mugged and probably killed as the old rule of mugging no longer applied. They would have to come scrape me up out of the gutter…

The old rule was an experienced mugger that would size up a potential victim for jewelry and expected wallet cash and only bother to risk mugging if the reward was significant, and he knew how rob without making a mess of it.

The New Rules, I was told, were a gang of several pre to mid-teens who were looking to rob anyone they may find, even for $5, and maybe just for the experience, and they were inexperienced, and if I did not do as ordered and spooked them they would just shoot me for the trophy of “making their bones” and run, leaving me for dead and the police to clean up later. I was advised to take a taxi back to the truck stop or I would surely wind up on the coroner’s table. Good advice for me, the guy who got along with everybody and had never had a bad experience with anyone or anything in all my wilderness, suburban, urban, or inner-city adventures.

This list is a fraction of the 2 year adventure I had as a working tourist. I have seen some of the best and worst our great Country has to offer, and never a dull moment throughout.