DJ - Indeed we have arrived in Paris, France! Bonjour Madam and Monsieur. Carl and Don here, having completed Peking or Perish and I find myself not having a lot to say, other than we're here. Perhaps indeed life and journeys are all about the journey and not the ultimate destination. I can observe that Paris is, as represented for hundred of years, an extraordinary and grand city. Having entered many cities over the last six weeks, you can immediately get a feel for a city as you enter. My feel for Paris, initially in several hours, is that the people are sort of withdrawn. They don't exhibit a lot of emotion. They sort of observe the passing event with a quizzical look, but they seem to warm up to it as they begin to realize what's happening. In other cities, people are instantly excited and sometimes exceptionally excitable. The cynosure aspects of Paris are remarkable. The streets are wide, the landmarks, of course, are so extraordinary in terms of what they represent, the Champs-Elysees, the Promenade, the Grand Boulevard that connects the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysees, the vast parks, the Eiffel Tower, the canals that run right through the city and the huge passenger barges that transverse the canals are sort of out of place as you drive along and have a large barge passing down a river in the center of an urban city is quite a remarkable experience. When we travel, we are always asked, "How was the weather?" The weather is as grand as the city. It is wonderful. Clear skies, mild temperatures and the scent of Fall in the air and one could not ask for better weather conditions, they are ideal.

So the arrival into Paris of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge was everything that you might hope it would be. We entered into the city and arrived at a central location to find several thousand people waiting. Reunions of families and friends, long postponed because of the travel. The process of officially completing the journey and the record keeping. The display of national pride by all competitors, 22 nationalities represented amongst the field who had completed something that has not been done since 1907, an extraordinary feat not only of mechanical achievement, but of personal spirit and personal perseverance. The arrival in the Place de la Concorde, which is a vast public space, was followed by a reception hosted by General Motors' Buick Division in the Automobile Club of France which is opposite the Place. Following the reception by a few hours, there was an extraordinary celebration, a gala dinner with a prize giving ceremony and a presentation of some early video from along the trip accompanied by some really upbeat contemporary music. To have been a participant in the Motor Challenge and to see, through the video account, the places and circumstances that we traveled is, not only for me, but I think for all of the competitors that I've spoken to, unbelievable as one looks at those images and says, Did we do that? We were so focused and so preoccupied with getting through the circumstances that often we were not cognizance the extraordinary aspects of everything around you. Well there will be much of that in the weeks and months ahead as video productions, photo books, and books are written about what transpired and many of the competitors, if not most, were not aware of 80% of what went on because they were so involved in their own circumstances. So, there's going to be a wonderful experience of discovering what occurred during the course of the six weeks. I mentioned a little about that when we traveled by ship from Greece and Italy. We had a span of 20 hours on the ship to talk to some of the competitors to learn what they had to do in order to carry on. We mentioned David Wilks from the UK who had a friend fly pistons from the UK to Istanbul and worked all night on his car to get the pistons installed in the engine. So there will be many, many revelations like that that are going to be quite fascinating about what people did in order to endure and to persevere. A most incredible bond was formed amongst the Motor Challenge participants. I liken it to a college or high school graduation and parting. A great deal of sentimentality associated with the bitter sweet notion that the end had arrived. An extraordinary amount of respect and admiration developed between the participants realizing the adversity and the difficulties that collectively everyone endured in order to arrive at the destination and did so in good spirit. Truly a most remarkable experience and one that we'll not dwell on at this time, other than to say we and our fellow competitors have arrived in Paris and all is well here.

A few mechanical side notes and some two way interactive E-Mail communication and we'll not exasperate our reputation for being long winded by carrying on much further. On the mechanical notes, I can now report to you something that I have not been inclined to say before now, that is the 1954 Packard did not use a single quart of oil in the course of now 15,000 miles of travel. Not a quart of oil. The oil was changed three times in the course of the travel from Peking to Paris, but beyond that not a drop of oil was added to the straight 8 engine. Those who are knowledgeable about engines understand how dependable and how great the reputation has been of the straight 8 and it really was the engine that it made it possible to get the '54 Packard across so many challenging circumstances. Even as we celebrated here in Paris, many of the British were saying, "Why do you Americans prefer such large cars? We don't understand." The vast majority of cars on the trip were mid size and very small vehicles of European design. Otherwise the Packard, Carl and I remarked as we drove into Paris, was running smoothly, no vibration. The car was performing optimally as we drove throughout the morning from Reims, three hours to the outskirts of Paris, and it was a joy to be driving the car. We must, of course, acknowledge that we lowered the convertible top for the first time and we entered Paris waving an American Flag and playing rock 'n roll music on the CD player with the top down and a big grin on both the faces of Carl and Don. It couldn't have been better.

We've received E-Mail communication from family and friends upon our arrival here in Paris. Carl has heard from many of his family members, besides those who are here to greet him and it's been fun to hear from all of the grandchildren and Carl's extended family of friends, including Christopher Schneider who tells us that he's glad, four times he's glad, that we've accomplished the mission. Joe and Sandy Dixon, our friends from Wisconsin, who have followed the journey and given us mechanical advice along the way, tell us that they're happy for us and that they're here in Paris in spirit. My brother, his wife and son, Bob, Lynda and Cody Jones are all happy to know the journey has been successfully completed. Bob, your E-Mail messages are not long winded at all on the Web. I enjoy watching you use the technology and being excited about it, it's a very, very good thing. Carl's received a message from The Elder Porsche Boy. I'm not quite sure who that individual is. I want my Aunt Rita in Cleveland, Ohio to know that I'll call the distant cousin whose phone number here in Paris, you've provided to me and see what kind of response we get. I've received a wonderful note from Mom Jones of Springfield, Illinois, who reminds me that my day dreaming in Latin class at Cathedral Boys High School is now a reality. Dreams do come true. I often dreamed during Latin class about what was outside the window and what was around the world. The debate in the 1950's in high school was whether or not to allow Red China admissions to the United Nations. I just couldn't understand the legitimacy of such a debate when you had a country, at that time, shy of a billion people and how politically, they could be denied to be part of the global United Nations. Well, that's ancient history now and of course, seems a little bit ridiculous looking back over the last several decades as to the fact that there even was such a debate. Our journey took us through places where we estimate three billion of the five billion people of the world reside. We'll have some further reflections about what our thoughts are about those people and their circumstance a little later in future updates. Continuing on with E-Mail acknowledgments. Our friends at Wisconsin Networks, who have made the web site possible, in text, audio and video, and in every way possible, graphically. They should be very, very proud. I received comments, unsolicited, from all over the world, first hand and third hand, that our web site was a very professional achievement, and in fact, by people who had multiple choices of where to get information, that our web site was the best in the world of places to stay up with the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. Well, ever since I was a child, my Aunt Sr. Rite Clare has been giving me reassurance and good wishes and even now in this stage in her life, having completed a career as an elementary school teacher for almost a century I think, well all right, several decades, she is using the Net to be in contact with me and so to my Aunt Rita Clare in Cary, Illinois, I say we're enjoying Paris as you advised and we will attempt to keep the festivities in perspective and not be too overly enthusiastic about it, but it is a joy to be here and it's a great feeling of satisfaction. From Canterbury, England, Andrew and Jenny Helbling, who are friends of Nigel Challis tell us that he should have taken flying lessons before he started. We've never said this before because we didn't want to embarrass Nigel, but he did take a flying leap off of a cliff in Nainital, India in his Land Rover. Late at night he drove into the lights of an on coming truck or bus going up a mountain in India and had no recourse but to drive in the direction that took the Rover off the side of a cliff and down an incredible several hundred feet and he and his passenger survived and walked away. I shook hands and hugged him here last night and his wife, who I met for the first time, said she was so grateful that she had the news of the journey on the web site to give her a feeling of being connected after he had to leave India. The Adler family in Syosset, New York, Nancy, Ira and Matt have been very generous with information in their communications. Nancy was very familiar with Oberammergau, Garmish and Muchen, having been in southern Germany and enjoyed the accounts of the region. Matt has been a stellar student in his school, reporting on our activity. And indeed when we return to Times Square, it would be a great delight to meet Matt, who I understand would like to bring his entire school to Times Square, maybe his social studies class, maybe just Matt and his family.

We will indeed be coming to Times Square. The automobile is being taken from the center of Paris to the place where it will be put on an oceanic transport trailer and sent across the Atlantic Ocean, a distance, as I recall, of nearly 4,000 miles to a port in New Jersey/New York. It will be taken off the ship and we will drive it into Times Square, completing the circumference of the world. At the equator, it's 24,000 miles around the earth. The distance across the Pacific Ocean is about 5,500 miles. It's about 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly 10,000 miles. The speedometer installed in the Packard at the time it was retrofitted for this journey says approximately 13,200 miles at this moment. So we have indeed, once we've completed the ocean crossings come very close to circumnavigating driving around the world, a distance on the surface of the globe, of 24,000 miles, the actual distance at the equator.

I'm going to do something that's unexpected here. I've been joined by my family and that is just an absolute wonderful experience to have your family together with you, Carol, Mary, Joseph and the leader of our family, the person who said to me several months ago, "You just have to do this", my wife Terri. Terri's nearby and Carl is with his family at this moment, so I'm going to ask Terri to come and share some of her feelings and have her have the experience of talking to family and friends here on our communications update.

Terri - I guess the only thing that I can say from my perspective, our family's perspective, is how proud we are of Don, how proud we are of all the participants in the Challenge. It was a wonderful, wonderful evening last night seeing the camaraderie, the friendship. There was open hugging, tears, kissing, men and men, women and men, all of them sharing the same goal of getting to Paris. The other thing that I would like to say is that it's very good to have Don back with our family. We've missed him a great deal and it's good that he had this opportunity and was able to travel the world like this, but it's always best for him to come back home and we're very anxious to get him back to Wisconsin again. We're having a wonderful time in Paris. We appreciate all the support of family and friends over the last few weeks, the people listening, the ardent fans we've had, Dawn O'Bar and Helen Perry, and people like them, that have always listened and stayed up-to-date with everything happening. Here's Don.

DJ - Well I think Terri could be a commentator. I do want to say that I'm eager to get home to find out if there is any truth to the rumor that a collection is being taken up to buy me a motor home so that I could get in the motor home and continue driving to places unknown and to continue the update reports. I'm told by my dear friend, Peter Stone, that there is a movement afoot to undertake a collection to send my off on the road for a prolonged period of time. I'll have to see if there's any truth to that. I must for my part, say that I'm not too anxious to get in a motor home and go anywhere right now. I do want to wish Peter a very happy birthday and tell him that we're thinking about him here in Paris on the occasion of his birth date, this first day of his next year of his life. We miss him and we think about him and Barbara as we're having a good time. Well, we don't miss him that much. I mean it's kind of good to be away from him.

One final observation/comment for a dear person, a wonderful human being, Fr. Dick McCaslin at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Oshkosh. For many years he served on a very lonely post in South Korea and so he knows what it's like to be away from family and friends and he is astute enough to use the Internet and to communicate by E-Mail with us and we want him to know that here in Paris we've received his congratulations upon our arrival and upon completing a journey of a lifetime and we thank Fr. McCaslin for allowing us to share it all with him and all of you.

We have the pleasure of having the Andrew family from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin with us here, Sue and Louie and their daughter Sara came from Rome, as well as Katie Massey. They've had some adversity with Katie and Sara being very close to the earthquake that has rumbled and occurred in Rome and we've encouraged them to see the opportunity in adversity and to stay with their goals.

Well, that's going to complete this acknowledgment that we've arrived in Paris and what are circumstances are at this moment. We must get the car to the Paris airport where it then gets sent on its way. The Andrews will be returning tomorrow to Wisconsin. The Jones will be returning at mid week after a few days of holiday here in this beautiful, beautiful city of Paris, France. We will continue the updates for we think probably the next 30 days. There are many photos and a lot of follow up information to be added and of course, there is the delayed and the commitment to give the Iranian retrospective, which many people here in Paris have joked to me about when are they going to get to hear that. Well that day will come. For now, however, it's October the 19th, the day after arriving in Paris, it's morning. Outside of our hotel, there's music in the streets as they're gearing up for a mid day concert right in the center of Paris. The sun is shining warm. It's just a spectacular day and we're reporting to you that we've arrived in Paris, having completed the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. Thanks for joining this update. We'll continue to have further updates over the next several days. On behalf of Carl, who is resting after a night of celebration, this is Don say au revoir from Paris, France.