A Very Different Monday
We're serving up peaceful distraction & a poll!
Good evening. This is a free subscriber exclusive.
It’s a different kind of Monday here in the United States of America.
One-third of our country is thrilled, another third is appalled, and the final third did not bother voting.
I don’t care how you voted, and I respect your point of view without knowing it. However, immense upheaval is upon us, and for those concerned with the chaos, I’m doing something different for the week.
All paying subscribers are receiving daily morning posts in case they need the distraction of beauty and light, nature and art. Typically, on the road, our monthly posts go from a dozen to twenty for paying subscribers. But this week, there will be more of them, with an occasional second post of the day.
This morning’s peace came from a video of our visit to Savannah and stunning Chippewa Square. We were drawn there by a historic sculpture by the famed New England artist Daniel Chester French. I’ve been on a French kick after learning about him and his closeness with other Concord, Massachusetts greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott (and family), and Nathaniel Hawthorne. (French arrived in town as a youngster right after Thoreau died.)
Earlier in the trip, we visited French’s Chesterwood Studio in the Berkshires, and we’ve undertaken a hunt for his statues. (DCF is the artist who created Concord’s Minuteman statue and the Lincoln Memorial.)
Our visit to Savannah had an interesting twist with its relationship with Forrest Gump!
Tomorrow’s story concerns our visit to a unique little pink house loaded with history and my review of our first stay in a My Place Hotel. A focus on Theodore Roosevelt and his role in preservation and some of the famed Roosevelt spots we’re visiting is coming later in the week. After that, an emotional three-part series on our three days in Mississippi in December will be served up. (It is perhaps the most profound visit we’ve ever had during these seven cross-country trips. It includes a nasty fall where I broke ribs, a finger, and tore some muscles.) By week’s end, we’re shifting from the Sonoran Desert to the Navajo Nation, and you’ll follow us from Petrified Forest National Park to Canyon de Chelly’s Spider Rock to Ship Rock, Grand Canyon National Park, and Monument Valley.
Whether you are celebrating today or mourning, the writing will keep coming.
I don’t know when your next free letter will appear, but it will be before the end of the month. But first, a poll. No one, not even me, can see how you vote.
Onward, by all means.
Tom (Samwise & Emily)
Feel free to share this with your friends and family.
This morning’s letter and video, Oh, Savannah!
Oh, Savannah!
I like that life can be quirky, which is also reflected in our current coddiwomple. Two of my favorite low/key stops were born during last year’s first night on the road in Concord, Massachusetts.