I’ve always wanted to visit Appalachia, and when I found out that we were within spittin’ distance to the Floyd Country Store music venue in Virginia, it was a given we’d make it to their legendary Friday Night Jamboree.

And what a lucky night for us; we were graced with the presence of the governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, and the past governor Mark Warner. They were there campaigning for local Dems, but they weren’t there just to give stump speeches; they actually play banjo, harmonica and guitar, and joined in with Blacksburg’s own Jugbusters!

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It was nineteen seventy something or other when I remember driving right onto the West Point campus and climbing on the rocks while my father enjoyed mother’s famous Swiss Miss and bourbon “Cappucino” from a Thermos while waiting for the Black Knights to sink Navy, or beat Colgate. (Real men fight wars not cavities!) We would walk the parade grounds, run freely around all the statues, or check out the huge links of the Great Chain used to keep the British Navy from sailing up the Hudson.

Dad’s alumni ring probably helped us gain backstage campus access back then, but he’d probably need a lot more than that now to go anywhere other than on the guided bus tour. If he were alive, that is. But he’s not, so I had just had to return to West Point and check on another memory from my Right Coast childhood. But thanks to security initiatives put in place since 9/11, the public is no longer given free range among the cadets and pleebs.

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We had a good month in October. Thanks to family and friends allowing us to park our rig on their properties, we saved a nifty little bundle on rent. Fuel costs went down too. We aren’t putting as many miles on the Dodge. If you’re interested, a full budget report for the last 5 months is available on our Fulltiming Resources page. And here is the link for the monthly Live Work Dream Expenses: October 2007

November marks five months on the road. There is still so much to see, and we are at a turning point. Should we travel around the south east to cool places that we know we’ll never live in (i.e., Florida, Memphis, Louisiana), just for the experience? Or should we skip ‘em, bank the money, and start moving south west to focus our time and money on the places that meet more of our criteria (i.e., Arkansas, Montana or Idaho)? What to do?