During my trip to see the eclipse in Tennessee, I read Al Gore's new book. Reading it brought elation to the part of me that feels "the revolution will not be motorized!" Lots of useful ideas on the framing of the term "revolution" in constructive ways there.

After seeing the eclipse on August 21st in Tennessee's State Capitol, we went down to Georgia to visit with my sister on the farm.

  

I was charmed in Alabama. That is to say the nicely air conditioned bus station surrounded by closed retail food places had this ribbon weight or button laying there on the floor by my bag.

TV had epic news from the weather front. In the end, at least 50 inches of rain landed some places. They were using phrases like "record rainfall".

  

Kansas amounted to a big windmill farm with an overpriced Popeyes in some drinkwater town. Denver, on the other hand, was good!

Going across the Midwest we did the math. Our bus was due in Denver after our connection to Salt Lake City was scheduled to leave. Not just a half an hour or something like that. To make matters worse, there weren't that many of us in that situation. Virginia and I decided to change our plans. Instead of going to Idaho Falls and the Yellowstone, we'd just spend the day acting like tourists in Denver. I was excited by this because I'd heard that tourists could buy weed retail and get a mile high if that's what they wanted to do. Was hoping to be able to do that.

The bus station in Denver refused to change our ticket destination from Idaho Falls to San Jose, but they rescheduled our tickets to Idaho Falls with a bus change in Salt Lake City at no charge. We decided to just get off in Salt Lake and hope for the best.

  

The first thing we found out in Salt Lake City is that the office wouldn't be open until most of our stay there was behind us. Stashing all that stuff somewhere was not an option. We headed for the light rail station towing 47 lbs. of stuff. Good thing the station wasn't far off.

The light rail let us off near Temple Square. Everything we passed was closed. Turned out that being a tourist in Utah when everything is closed for the sabbath feels like exploring an old school videogame maze. Lots to see, but nobody to talk to. We got a few blocks before Virginia put her bag down on a bench in the shade. She told me "How about you go up the hill and view the Capitol. I'll stay here and watch the stuff." I said okay and left her outside the worldwide headquarters of the Mormon Church. Saw the view from the top of the hill, among other things.

     

After that we found an open restaurant and ate a good meal. Found an open bookstore and got stuff to read on the last leg of the trip. Then we went back to the Greyhound Station. To make a long story short, the station agent had no problem with just sending us back to San Jose. Charged us $20 each for changing out tickets though.

        

Got coffee in Nevada.

  

This book grabbed me in the bookstore in Salt Lake City for some reason. I read some of it as we crossed Nevada and California.

  

As we left the Greyhound Station to walk down to the Caltrain Station, POTUS and Finland's President were on TV. We were tired and happy.