Thanks, Kate, nice shot. This was a remarkable boat ride. At one point we pased an islandnwhere hundreds of great egrets were nesting. As we approached, they looked like smayy pearls flying about and resting in trees. As we got closer, we were surrounded by hundreds of them flying in all directions. Allwere great egrets, the big ones with yellow beaks. I don't know where the smaller egrets nest, if anywhere around here, There was a constant blast of bird calls and songs... the squawking of egrets, "conk-a-REE!" of redwinged blackbirds, the occasional "pretty-pretty-pretty!" of cardinals, and many I don't recognize, We did put ashore on the islkand to hike, but didn't find trails and didn't want to go off without serious shoes.. it's not wise to disturb a water moccasin! Many thanks to Mayford and Pam for this adventure.

I've brought many books along;I have been feeling like my love of science has trumped my love of literature for too long, so I will concentrate on literature to get some balance. I do have some nature essays, poetry, short stories, travel literature. Also, a novel by the late Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes which includes travel themes. And yes, ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac. I dicided to reread it after many years because a movie version is coming out soonm and just because I've needed to check it out again.

I could say much about Kerouac and his fellow Beats (DON'T CALL THEM BEATNIKS!!!) who I used to idolize and still respect. They were sexist, and had huge problems with substance abuse. They could be self pitying, and overly impressed with themselves. The wisest among them knew it; Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl", along with its brutal honesty and fury, also has a tongue in cheek, "we're all kind of ridiculous!" tone.

The Beats were also one of the damaged, shadowy sides of the WWII generation. They were also deeply intellectual and curious, compassionate to the most down and out people they met, open to all experiences and very aware of the contradictions in the consumerist 1950s. And many of them could write!

Kerouac's prose is exquisite. It is melodic like the jazz he thrived on,often perfect in its descriptions of people and places, full of twists, astonishing metaphors, and uinsights. Many people in the '50s saw it as lurid; today the descriptions of drunken parties and quick changes of sexual partners seem kind of repetitive and tedious. The real theme is Kerouac's search for epiphanies and connections, moments of astounded fulfillment in the bittersweet rollercoaster of life. This was his odessey. There is a melancholy feeling to this. I am taken by this piece of dialogue between Sal Paradise (Kerouac) and Carlo Marx (Ginsberg):

"'There's one last thing I want to know.

"And I said, 'The last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing.We keep living in the hope of catching it once and for all.'"

I will be thinking of that as we travel. Will we find a ast thing? Most likely not, but we will find a widening of our world - another goalof travel. Stay tuned,

Paul G.