We arrived home today, so this is our last post 'from the road.' There are several more in the pipeline that we will get up as soon as we finish writing them.

We are out of synch, once again, putting Indiana before Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, but this post is related to the day we honor service men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Our plan was to go directly from Austin to New Orleans but the I-10 maze around Houston had other plans for us.

New Orleans is the favorite city of millions of people. We've been among those millions ever since the Brennan family, of restaurant acclaim, befriended us thirty-five years ago.

Roswell, New Mexico hadn't been on my radar screen until Kathryn and Duane Elms (the competitive costumers we met in Santa Fe) said they live there.

No, we didn't climb El Capitan. However, we did arrive in Yosemite only a few days after the huge chunk of it came crashing down on some unfortunate climbers and tourists, killing one.

The following is a collection of images of people with whom we have connected and reconnected on our trip.

We knew our country's divide was quite deep, with people on each side not listening to the other side.

We looked at the map and found a small spot of a town halfway between Tahoe and St Helena: Upper Lake, population 1,052.

Driving across the country, even with two months scheduled for the trip, does not leave much time for exercise beyond reaching into the back seat for the map of the next state, or a quick dash to the bathroom when we stop for gas.

Our sweet cabin on the lake in Tahoe City was an oasis of peace and quiet for the two nights we stayed there.

From the day we started planning our road trip we knew that St. Helena in Napa Valley was a three-star stop because our dear friends Ada and Stan Press live there.

October contains some dates worth noting in the Brody family, as well as the Jewish Holiday of Sukkot.

The name Sun Valley conjured up all kinds of fantasies for me such as suntanned celebrities the likes of Gary cooper, Clark Gabel, Claudette Colbert and Ingrid Bergman hanging out at the bar at the Sun Valley Lodge after gracefully slaloming down deep powered slopes.

Wyoming is a big state. If you're trying to drive across it to get to Yellowstone from the Black Hills in the southwest corner of South Dakota, it's 460 miles and more than 8 hours of driving.

The conservative commentator Erick Erickson had an op-ed piece in The New York Times on September 30, 2017, "How To Find Common Ground." He speaks more directly and far more eloquently than we ever could about one of our motivations for making this trip.

The thing that caught my eye as we pulled into the 6th level of the parking garage at Mount Rushmore was a lovingly restored 1957 Chevy Bel Air, gleaming in the cool, clear South Dakota sunlight.  

We mentioned in an earlier posting that I backed our car into another one in La Crosse WI. It turned out to be a very fortunate screw-up.

We arrived in La Crosse, Wisconsin and took a walk around town. My connection to La Crosse (I am embarrassed to admit) was the scholarship that our youngest son was given to play lacrosse in college.

I picked up a book in a Portland bookstore a few years ago because it had a great cover.

We just heard from a good friend, Rena Koopman, a goldsmith who designs and makes beautiful jewelry. (Some of Rena's lovely pieces I have given to Lora are shown in the photograph.)

Before leaving on this trip, friends asked how we planned to start conversations with people we didn’t know.

If you're driving from Chicago to Spring Green WI to see Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio at Taliesin, you definitely do a last second swerve onto the exit when the "Racine" sign triggers a memory that this is where Wright designed the headquarters for the SC Johnson Wax Co.

We passed through Madison with enough time to only glimpse the incredible weekend farmer's market and the impressive Capitol building.

I hadn’t flown anywhere in almost 6 months, I try to walk many places and take the T as often as possible.

This spring we attended two one-day seminars that were created as a response to the election and people’s desire to learn how to communicate with friends and family members who voted ‘for the other side.’ 

We have decided to take a two-month road trip across the United States starting on September 14 and invite you to share our journey via this blog we are calling Cross Roads: Our Drive To See America.