DJ - Good evening from New York City where at 10 o'clock in the evening on Monday the temperature is 85 degrees. Very hot and very humid in the Eastern United States and in a convertible as you drive across the Appalachian Mountains and into New York City, you would think with the drop down it would be a cool thing to do, but the thermometer inside the car, with the top down, indicates 110 degrees. We're beginning to wonder if having a convertible is a liability or perhaps, yet to be decided, an asset. Never have made a long cross country trip with a convertible. The car that we're using for the trip Around The World is a 1954 Packard convertible and we had the top down all the way from Wisconsin into New York City today, Monday. The trip was not without obstacles. The hot weather is causing some fuel and ignition problems and after a rendezvous with our daughter in the small town of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, just off of Interstate 80, we began driving with the hope of reaching Manhattan by midnight on the same day we left Wisconsin. But that was not meant to be because the car decided not operate poorly and we pulled off the Interstate highway and had to call 911 and request assistance from the local police and a wrecker truck and have the car taken to a garage where we met a very accommodating couple by the name of Pam and Kevin from Shawville, Pennsylvania on the fringe of the Appalachian Mountains. They worked on the car's ignition system and fuel system until about 3 AM and secured a spare part or two off of another vehicle and called us to report the car was running satisfactorily at 7 AM. So by 8 AM we were on the road headed to Manhattan. But that was not meant to be either, because in the middle of the afternoon, the car, in downtown Newark, New Jersey, got to coughing and spitting, and the temperatures were just so high that we had to pull off the road. We pulled into a service station and became good friends in a matter of a few hours with the owner there, Mike Allora, who operates a full service auto center in the absolute center of one of the most difficult cities in America, Newark. Mike and his staff, a Russian mechanic by the name of Serge, went to work and helped with some of the distributor and ignition problems that we thought were responsible for the low horse power output of the car. They sent us on our way by 3 o'clock and we arrived in that center of the American experience, Times Square. There, we parked the car on the small island underneath the jumbotron of NBC and visited with a number of the New York media for a couple of hours, television interviews, visits from USA Today and other New York media representatives who stopped by to see the car and to hear about the upcoming international competition. It was a terrific day of overcoming obstacles and the excitement at Times Square, where the first Around The World had its beginnings on February 10th at 11 AM. We expect to leave tomorrow, Tuesday, at 11 AM from Times Square after being presented with a Times Square 2000 flag to be delivered to the Mayor of San Francisco. We're not looking for anywhere near 250,000 people who showed up for the first send off in 1908. Might be just a handful of folks on hand to see us away. We've been invited to come by and visit the NBC Today show in the morning and to present the weather man, Al Roker, with an Around The World shirt and hat. We'll be up at 5 AM headed for the television studios at Rockefeller Center. All part of international motor rally, out telling the story and getting people excited and interested. We've heard some wonderful things about the Internet web site, www.newyorktoparis1997.com. Things such as people seeing us on the highway and sending messages to the web site. And we've heard of people here in New York looking at some of the pictures of our families that were taken over the weekend by Dave and Rick who are maintaining the web site using digital photography. Quite a remarkable thing to see the technology reach out like that. Well, the excitement of our journey begins tomorrow and part of that journey is overcoming obstacles as they occur. We think, right now, the quality of fuel - the difference between the unleaded fuels of today and leaded fuels of the era in which the car we're operating - might effect the performance of the car. We're learning about that as a result of our shake down to New York. Otherwise, we're in good health, good spirits and looking forward to a race across the US the rest of this week to San Francisco, hopefully to arrive there by Friday, Saturday, maybe Monday. Who knows. Depending what befalls us as we go across the country - 2,886 miles. Well that's an update. We're poised to leave Times Square at about Noon, Eastern time, on Tuesday and to journey nearly 3,000 miles across the US. It took several weeks for the first competition in 1908 to get across the US as there were very few paved roads and no maps at that time. People back then were certainly more courageous and more daring than we are today. Not sure how to describe our state of mind and our reason for undertaking this journey other than it's fun and you learn a lot and meet a lot of nice people as you go down the highway, figuratively, in life and on motor rallies. That's the news. We're glad you came along with Carl and Don. We hope to keep you informed with future reports. So long for now.