Roadtrip Updates from Nashville, TN

Hello all,

The road trip has almost come to an end. By Sunday, I'll be back in Philadelphia. My awesome brother, Erik, met me in New Orleans on Thursday night and we're driving the last leg together, which is fantastic! We had a great time checking out Bourbon Street on Thursday night and then drove a long long day to Nashville on Friday. We barely made it to Nashville in time to check out a little music cafe that had been highly recommended to me by a couple of folks from Tennessee that I met while viewing prairie dogs in the Badlands of South Dakota. And of course, I took their advice. We were not led astray!! I will need to write out the entire story soon, but let's just say, we heard performances from some of the singer-songwriters that are behind the lyrics of the country songs Erik and I grew up with. AMAZING!

Yesterday morning in Mandeville, LA we saw the largest live oak in the United States...39 feet in circumference...wow!! Then we saw a few awesome trees by twilight in Alabama last night and today we'll be checking out the national champion Atlantic White Cedar in Ohio!! Trees all over the US are feeling loved...lots of hugs have been given.


Toast to the morning with coffee that Erik and I made up:

To the parties in New Orleans
To the Nashville music scene
May we smile some more today
Cuz here we come PA

As I mentioned before, coordinating tree visits, driving long distances, seeing amazing parts of the United States and camping without internet connections make keeping up with the blog very very challenging and I have obviously not been doing well with that. But I figure, I'd rather give you the whole story of the trip in quality rather than quantity, so I will be catching up on the blog steadily once my feet are off the floorboards of trusty ol' Florida (Rudy and I named the Toyota Corolla).

Much Love,
Kristina

Coming soon...

Sunset from St. Joseph, Michigan over Lake Michigan. Breathtaking! A million thanks to Andy Sawyer.

Hello all! I just wanted to let you know that I made it to Sioux Falls, South Dakota today, July 28 around 5pm. I'm safe and sound...no worries.

I've been having such an amazing time, meeting inspiring people, seeing magnificent trees, and visiting parts of the country I've only dreamed of. Because of all the fun I've been having, I haven't been able to keep up with the blog. Tonight, from the confines of my tent in the Badlands National Park, I will be working on writing some updates that I will be able to upload when I get some internet access again. Sorry for the delay and thanks for all of your support! Hopefully, the next blog posts will come in rapid succession, so keep up when you can!

Much Love,
Kristina

Treehugger Tour

Simpson's grasspink in Big Cypress National Preserve (Calopogon tuberosus)

As you know, I have embarked on a two month long road trip across the United States. If you didn't know that, come catch up with these links:

Treehugger Tour Video
Tour Logistics
Approximate Budget
Map of Approximate Route
Potential Trees to See along the way (ever evolving map)

I just wanted to let you know that I recently made some edits to the Treehugger Tour Route Map to accommodate a trip to the Badlands in South Dakota and a slight dip into Colorado to pick up my traveling buddy, Rudy.

Thank you all for your support! The outpouring of interest in my trip has been amazing!

I am excited to announce that American Forests has agreed to partner with me on this tour to help me to contact the big tree coordinators, find the most interesting trees along the route, and help me to coordinate tree plantings to offset my carbon emissions. If you haven't already, I encourage you to take a look at their website for information about all the amazing things they do. I visited their office in Washington, DC this past week and I was very impressed with the organization. The National Register of Big Trees is only a glimpse of their efforts to "grow a healthier world with trees".

If you'd like to support my trip with care packages, a couch to crash on, or a financial donation, I'd be absolutely delighted! Drop me an email at heartkh at gmail dot com.

Also, if you'd like to be on the postcard list, send me your name and address in an email.

See you all soon!

Track me!

So I just added a new feature to the blog so that you can track me on google maps. If you go to the right column of this page you will see a list that says "Pages." The second link under that header will say "Where am I mucking about?" If you click that link it will take you to my google map to show you where I have been lately. Just under the map you will see a link that says "view in a larger map." If you click on that you can see details of where I have been lately.


Come check it out. Let me know if you like this feature or not. I think it will help a lot for my road trip plans...more to come.

How to Post a Comment

Hello folks! It has come to my attention that some of you would like to post comments but can't quite figure out how to do so. Let me give you a quick and hopefully painless tutorial. If you read a particularly exciting post and you can't wait to comment, scroll to the bottom of the post, where you will see something that looks like this:

When you see that, click on the "0 comments" link (hopefully the number won't always say 0...that is if you start posting comments!!). Once you do so, you'll see a screen that shows this box on the right hand side:

Simply type your comment into the box at the top. Then choose an identity. If you are already logged into a google account (because Blogger.com is a google product), you can sign your comment with your google account info.

Most of you will probably want to simply click on the "anonymous" button and then click publish your comment (or you can preview it first if you want). This way, you can post comments without signing into anything. Just remember, that if you click the Anonymous button, I probably will have no idea who the comment is actually from. I'm cool with that. I like a little mystery every now and again. Secret admirer or secret spy style. But if you want me to know who you are (which makes me pretty excited! I like knowing that people I know or people I hope to eventually know are saying hello and giving me feedback), then put your name at the bottom of the comment, even if you click the Anonymous button. Pretend like it's an email, but that I can't see or recognize your email address.

Much love everyone! Thanks for checking in on me from time to time. I'm so excited that you read this!

Kristina