DJ - Welcome to today's update and commentary. A week ago at this time we were crossing the continental United States and if you were to do that trip, which I would recommend, thought I would share with you some observations reflecting back on that experience as you move across this beautiful country of ours. These are just random thoughts and observations going across an Interstate highway.

Looking back on New Jersey, I was struck by the fact that it only took two hours to cross the state of New Jersey, to go from New York to Pennsylvania. New Jersey is a long state, but a narrow state and it had considerable more hills and valleys than I expected, particularly along the Pennsylvania border, which is the beginning of the Allegheny Mountains.

In Pennsylvania Carl remarked on one of the things you observe out the window is a lot of road kill of deer unfortunately. A significant number of deer are struck and lying along the road in the Pennsylvania area. It would appear that the deer population is quite substantial and deer move across the highways.

Ohio, it seems to me, has the prettiest and best maintained toll way. The toll ways are like our front yards, very well maintained and very impressive and consequently, a very pleasant place to drive through.

In Illinois, outside of the Chicago metropolitan area, and just a comment that highway construction on the Interstate on the south side of Chicago which has been going on for a few months and continues at this time. The movement of traffic on the south side of Chicago is very congested. But as you get into the rural areas, Ottawa, LaSalle, Peru, Princeton and across to the Quad Cities, the farm crops are suffocating from lack of rain recently. As of last week, the farmers in the diner were complaining that the crop was going to be significantly reduced across northern Illinois, from Chicago to the Mississippi. The reduction having to do with not enough subterranean ground soil moisture for both the beans and corn crop. The corn was curling indicating that the corn was having a hard time getting enough moisture to continue the growth of the stalk. And the farmers in the diner were saying yields would be cut in half their normal levels because of the stage the crop was at right now and the lack of development. On the other hand, continuing into Iowa, the crops look absolutely terrific, both the beans and corn are really quite advanced. Much more advanced than in the state of Wisconsin, which typically trails two to three weeks in the growing season of Iowa and Illinois.

Driving across Nebraska toward the evening hours and watching the sunset is really quite spectacular. As a matter of fact I recall the Nebraska license plates having shades of the nighttime sunset on them. On the other hand, when you get to western Nebraska at about midnight trying to find a place to put up for the night at a motel, our experience was you are going to be out of luck. Because on Interstate 80 in the far western side of Nebraska, after midnight as you go from town to town, nearly all the lodging facilities are occupied by that time along the Interstate highway. That was our experience so we just said, the heck with it and drove onto Cheyenne Wyoming but didn't arrive there until 4 AM Mountain Standard time, 5 AM Central Standard time.

With regard to Wyoming, Carl commented that all the billboards seemed to be empty. And despite the vibrant economy, for some reason billboard advertising along the interstate highway in Wyoming is not successful at this time.

Utah for me personally was fascinating because of the Salt Lake and because of the Bonneville Flats. I recall 50 to 100 miles of stretches of Salt Lake, which appeared to me, being from Wisconsin to be like snow. So it was quite something to observe the Salt Lake effect of central Utah. I would comment that there is this most unusual sculpture that stands 80 to 100 feet tall in the middle of the Bonneville Flats vicinity, right near the border of Nevada and Utah, and it appears a commissioned art work of some kind, just in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Quite a remarkably thing. The best way I could describe it is it was a tower with basketballs suspended from sort of concrete leaves on limbs on a tree. Quite a remarkably site out in the middle of the desert in Salt Lake.

Moving into California, one is struck by the six lanes of bumper to bumper highway traffic. But then you're greeted by the cool fresh air of the Bay area of San Francisco, which is quite in contrast to the 100 plus temperatures across most of the United States. All in all, quite a remarkable panorama.

My experience of traveling as a business person over the years has been to fly into major cities and conduct business and then leave. So consequently, over the years I've been to Las Vegas many times, to Salt Lake City, but never had I traveled across the state of Nevada and I found Nevada to be intriguing. The topography, the economy. It was for me, a discovery. Similarly, I cannot recall as an adult spending much time driving through Pennsylvania. So to participate in the beginning of an Around The World trip in our own country was very stimulating and quite constructive. I would recommend it. Although probably not within 2 days, 22 hours and 19 minutes, as Carl and I accomplished on our trip from New York's Times Square to San Francisco's Nob Hill last week.

We're pulling together all the important details that are going to make is possible for us to go around the world. Carl's comment on the paperwork, I would update that all the visas necessary, with the exception of one, are in my passport at this time. The one that remains is Iran and that visa is being administered by the British organizers of the Peking to Paris rally. The passport had to be sent to each of the individual embassy's consulates, or in the case of Iran, to London to receive the visa stamp and the instructions of the visa. Reading the visas today for China and Pakistan reminds one of the different culture, public policy of different countries. For those two countries, Pakistan and China, the visa expressly states that the visas is good for one visit and limited to a 30 day period. That's in contrast to other countries where the visas tend to say 90 days within one year. So you immediately sense that the attitude toward international travel is quite different in those countries. One of the joys of an experience like this is organizing the many details and so far it appears that all those details are coming together. One always reserves judgement and realizes that things can crop up to interfere with the best laid plans and so far that, I can report, does not seem to be the case. There is no interference in sight at this time. So all signals are go for the continuation of Around The World. That's today's commentary and update and thanks for coming along with Carl and Don. See you on the next update.