Hi ladies,

First, welcome to Glacier. Looks like you're a new member. You'll like BWS -- lots of great women.

What to keep in, what to take out... Let me get back to Nancy's earlier question about favorite people or places, then answer Glacier and unique's questions. (And unique, I'm psyched to hear you're planning a similar trip. "Ribbons" could be a wonderful blueprint for you to help in your travel planning.)

Nancy, the places that touched us most deeply were the small places. The quiet, hidden, overlooked places where Americans live and work and go to church and raise their kids and welcome you among them when you visit. Let me insert a short excerpt from the book here. (I'll probably do that from time to time during the month, as it's a good way to answer many of your questions, and it gives you a taste of the writing style you'll find between the book's covers.) It gives a quick but by no means exhaustive list of some of the places we truly loved:

As the woodsy, rural inland towns began to blend together into a straight, monotonous chain – Ewen, Bruce Crossing, Sidnaw, Champion (which distinguished itself as the “Horse-Pulling Capital of the U.P.”), Humboldt, where we passed a billboard for Da Yoopers Tourist Trap (miles and miles elapsing until I equated Yoopers with U.P.’ers), we came to Marquette, one of the most beautiful small American cities I have ever seen.

For 9,900 miles, I’d been keeping a list in my head. A list of communities I held as special. These towns had, for different reasons and in different ways, especially touched me. When I thought of them, I smiled from the inside out, and that’s what they had in common. New River Gorge, Lexington, Memphis, Natchez, New Orleans, Santa Rosa, Acoma, Santa Fe, Bluff, Lee Vining, Fort Bragg, Bend, Boise, Red Lodge, Sundance, Belvedere, Duluth, Ashland.

I added Marquette, Michigan to the list. She sat on hills above Superior, her old neighborhoods collections of trim, fresh-painted, wooden workingman houses set amongst mature trees, streets undulating up or down depending on one’s orientation to the lakeshore. Her downtown was a wonder of fire-red stone and brick.

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Again, the small places were the most precious treasures on our discovery of America.

As for special people, there were many. Among them: Two Natchez, Mississippi fishermen who gave the kids a catfish lesson; Joey, a wizened Cajun who brought us through the Louisiana bayou and took us up close and personal with a fleet of gators (unique, there's a boat ride for you! Munson's Swamp Tours in Schriever, Louisiana. On my book website, www.LoriHein.com, you'll find an excerpt that introduces you to Joey, Munson's and life in Cajun sugarcane country); the daredevil, teenage cowboys and cowgirls of Sundance, Wyoming who galloped their hearts out at the Crook County Rodeo and displayed their ribbons and trophies on the hoods and open beds of their parents' pickup trucks (you can meet them in an excerpt at my website, too. Sundance was a place where mamas definitely let their babies grow up to be cowboys!); a twentysomething young man from Ishpeming, Michigan with yellow spiked hair and blue-tinted glasses who sat in his trunk next to three-foot-tall stereo speakers and taught me all about the decline of the Rust Belt's iron ore industry and explained the workings of the now unused but hauntingly beautiful oredock that soared over the harbor as we talked; Susan, a motel owner in Alpena, Michigan, who lived in a turquoise concrete bunker smack on Lake Huron and wore wildly colorful clothes. She loved my kids, and gave us the room closest to the beach. And tiny Trey, whom we met on the Fourth of July on Avery Island, Louisiana. Another excerpt:

On the 4th of July, we found ourselves at Avery Island, home of McIlhenny’s Tabasco Sauce factory. Being a holiday, the factory was closed, and the workers had a day off to crab.

We hung at the dock outside McIlhenny’s with 2-year old Trey, his mom Tracy, dad Doug, his grandma, and his “nanonk,” Uncle Travis. (I wondered if nanonk owned Nonk’s Car Repair back up Route 329 in Rynela, near the trailer of the lady that advertised “Professional Ironing.”)

Trey, in his little jeans and bright red rubber Wellingtons, held his hands on both sides of his head and, with eyes wide as plates, told me about what was “in there.” Turkey necks tied to strings and weighed down with washers were the bait of choice of all the crabbers on the dock, and a four-foot gator had decided to come and help himself. He’d just been shooed away and waited on the other side of the canal.

Trey had his own cooler filled with crabs. His parents had a second cooler, so full that when they opened it, crabs spilled out. Tracy and grandma sat on chairs under striped umbrellas and tried to keep Trey from climbing the dock’s fence. Nanonk said, “If’n you fall in, I ain’t goin’ in after ya. Gonna let the gator git ya.”

That night would be America’s first 4th of July night since September 11. All through Louisiana we’d seen evidence that people planned to celebrate with spirit. Fireworks stands were busy. But there’d be caution, too. I’d seen a Times-Picayune story titled “United We Plan” about security measures to protect celebrations large and small around the country. Americans would be out on Independence Day, but with their guard up.

We stood on the balcony of our Bossier City motel and watched fireworks from Shreveport, just across the Red River. Inside the room, James Taylor and Ray Charles entertained on TV from New York City, and two giant crickets tried, unsuccessfully, to elude me.

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Oops, almost time to go pick up my son from track practice. I'll be back later with more on what, if anything, I'd do differently, and where, if anywhere, I'd avoid...

Gotta jump in the minivan (that would be New Paint, the trusty vehicle you'll meet in "Ribbons." "We were four travelers, three with legs, one with wheels...")

Lori