This log runs through August 7, 2001

July 2, 2001 in Hector, NY
We are fortunate to have wonderful and welcoming friends Fred and Kristi, who live just northeast of Watkins Glen, New York in a beautiful new home overlooking their vineyards and Lake Seneca. For we Gypsies, staying with them a few days is vastly superior to hanging out in a tent in the Arizona desert like we did early in the Expedition.

We'll be in Hector through July 4, loving every minute. As a special bonus, Fred and Kristi also own many acres of cherry trees -- and the cherries are ripe. One more note for the Gypsy Life Handbook: always arrive at harvest season!

July 3, 2001 in Hector, New York
It's hard to believe that by the end of this month we'll have traversed the northern USA and be in Salt Lake City in preparation for our flight to Thailand....and that by the 20th of next month we'll be in Bali, Indonesia preparing to ferry off to remote islands.

While in Thailand for a few days, we'll take a load of donated medical supplies to the Kwai River Hospital near the Burma border, where we volunteered earlier this year and will again late in the year. The only doctor there, an American, has mailed a photo of the completed "isolation ward" project. For new readers of this site: when we were there before, the hospital urgently needed to isolate highly infectious patients from other patients and staff. We contributed and then badgered friends, relatives and strangers alike to provide enough money to complete Dr. McDaniel's long held dream.

The isolation ward is a real benefit in an area reporting the world's most resistant strains of Malaria, rampant TB, leprosy and other nasty diseases -- not to mention land mind victims and other casualties of Burma's civil war only a few miles away. The doctor, a third generation American missionary, and his staff, send their heartfelt thanks to all who contributed.

July 4, 2001 in Hector, NY
We mentioned eating the incredible cherries on the property of our hosts, and today we learned that cherry picking is a holiday tradition here for many people. At the crack of dawn hundreds of local people swarmed the orchards, picking cherries and paying by the pound.

July 5, 2001, leaving upstate New York for Iowa
This morning the Gypsy Camp will load up and head west, bound for a dozen stops visiting relatives and friends before ending up in Utah and, only a month from now, our return to Asia.

July 7, 2001 in West Des Moines, Iowa
The Gypsy Wagon now sits in front of Rebecca's sister's family's house in Des Moines, ready to depart for Sioux Falls, SD tomorrow. Preparation for a year in Asia continues to occupy us.

July 8, 2001 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
This afternoon, in southeast South Dakota, we saw our first tornado. It didn't quite touch the ground, but it was certainly exciting! By the time we got the camera out, it was gone. Still, we took advantage of the state's 75 mph speed limit and got the heck out of that area!

We'll be in Indonesia about two months, but STILL don't have an itinerary. Our first destination will be Sulawesi. There are a lot of complex considerations, not the least of which is the current political upheaval as they prepare to indict their President.

Over the course of two months, we'll work our way south, then northwest toward Singapore and Malaysia, and then on back to Thailand. After another short stay there, we'll fly to Nepal through early December.

One thing we will NOT do is travel to East Timor, where the massacres have occurred. This is the former Portuguese island taken over by Indonesia in the 1970's, sparking violence since. Don was there on a Senate trip 10 years ago. After receiving promises from foreign minister in Jakarta and the the military commander in Dili, East Timor that no more bloodshed would occur, it was only three months later that government troops trapped a funeral procession in a cemetery and gunned down as many as 200 unarmed people.

July 9, 2001 in South Dakota
The Expedition has passed the 80,000 mile mark, with no end in sight. The only near term problem we face now is how to pack everything we'll need for a full year in Asia and the South Seas -- including all the computer and camera gear required to update this site -- into packs that we can pick up and carry!

CLICK HERE for enlargeable photos of South Dakota.

July 15, 2001 in Belle Fourche, South Dakota
Wow, what a wild few days. We've been visiting with friends and relatives in Sioux Falls and Watertown, South Dakota, and Winthrop and Minneapolis, Minnesota, totally forgetting for a while that we need to be preparing for our arrival on some remote Indonesian islands, where we'll be in five weeks.

July 18, 2001 in western South Dakota
Planning a trip out of the country a year at a time is difficult. Not only must everything be pared down to what we can carry in one load (including the computer, two cameras and lots of backup and support gear and other electronics), but our clothing and personal items must accommodate climates varying from tropical jungle to the mountains of Nepal.

Preparing the 4X4 and camper for a year in storage is important, as is prepaying insurance coverage and making arrangements to pay vehicle taxes from Australia next year.

We have updated electronic address books and other critical information, and have scanned our passports, driver's licenses, wills, birth certificates, airline tickets, website files, immunization records, and have compressed incoming and outgoing e-mail for the past year -- attaching them to e-mail messages to ourselves at an address we can access from any Internet connected computer in the world, just in case disaster strikes.

Credit cards that will expire while we're gone must be replaced now and traveler's checks purchased. American embassies and friends at home and overseas must be notified of our expected whereabouts -- and books, maps and other information about a dozen countries must be collected and toted. Arrangements are being made to meet up with other travelers in exotic places. Post office fees, lingering medical bills must be paid and subscriptions canceled

Power of Attorney must be given so we can file taxes without being here next spring. Just before we leave August 8, our Internet service and the roving cell phone will be canceled. The list is endless. Already we're kicking ourselves for not having been able to see many of the people we wanted to visit during our 16,000 miles drive around America.

Right now our possessions are scattered everywhere, and sorting and sifting continues through the nights, A certain degree of confusion reins! Checklists rule our lives.

We will feel the first reward for all this as we sip champagne while the big Thai Airline 747-400 pushes back from the gate in Los Angeles for the 8,200 mile flight to Bangkok (with a stop in Tokyo). Ten days later, after taking donated medical supplies to the Kwai River Hospital on the Thai/Burma border, we'll be enroute to Indonesia for two months' exploration of some of its 6,000 populated islands (of 13,000 total).

For the near term: On July 20 we will appear on a television program in Rapid City (KOTA), explaining what it's like to be jobless, homeless, and happier than ever. Our goal is to encourage people to live life to the fullest. After all, how can people claim to know what goes on in the world when most people don't even know that the country is the world's fourth most populous -- or that 60% of Indonesia's people live on 7% of the land. We intend to meet some of the people there, and see what THEY think is important. Short of doing this, how can WE have the perspective to know what is important?

July 23, 2001 in Livingston, Montana
We had a great drive from South Dakota to Cody, Wyoming; Buffalo Bill's (and Don's) home town.

July 24, 2001 in southern Montana
The political situation in Indonesia is of increasing concern. In the past few days the President has been indicted and the daughter of the former President sworn into the presidency. The value of their currency has strengthened 10%, reducing our buying power there. Our main concern is political unrest, and we'll monitor the situation closely.

July 25, 2001 in Livingston, Montana
This morning we pulled the following off the Internet: The Department of State urges American citizens to defer nonessential travel to Indonesia and all travel to Aceh, Maluku, Papua, West Timor, Central and West Kalimantan (Borneo) and Central Sulawesi. Those who must travel to Indonesia, or who are resident there, should exercise extreme caution. Indonesia is experiencing a major political transition, and unrest and violence can erupt with little forewarning anywhere in the country. Bombings of religious, political and business targets have occurred throughout the country.

As we had planned to be in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia by this time next month, this warning gives us pause. Don has twice been in Indonesia, the first time in East Timor just before the massacre in 1991, so we are aware that dangerous situations are possible.

The beauty of our plan -- fly to Bangkok August 8 and buy tickets there for travel throughout Asia -- is its flexibility. If things in Indonesia appear threatening after we arrive in Thailand, we'll simply go elsewhere. And we're working now on where that might be.

July 27, 2001 -- a Forest Fire in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Descending Teton Pass, the first sign of smoke in the pristine valley ahead didn't seem ominous. But at the bottom of the mountain, the town of Wilson was alive with firefighting equipment, some of it arriving from distant towns. Luxurious sleeping arrangements for tents for 1,100 fighters were scattered across a field, and a hastily constructed fire headquarters had been erected at the Wilson Post Office.

Then we saw the enemy clearly. Descending the mountain, oblivious to the airplanes and helicopters (26 aircraft in all) dropping water and slurry (2,000,000 gallons so far), the fire was advancing on the afternoon winds. From different vantage points we took many pictures of this 3,700 acre monster, knowing that along with the forest, dreams were being consumed.

As night fell, equipment fell silent and the flames were hidden the smoke -- but for occasional bursts of flame igniting entire stands of pine trees on the smoky hillside.

Mother nature, which so generously endowed this valley with some of our nation's most awesome scenery has been busy for nearly a week taking some of it away.

CLICK HERE for enlargeable photos of Wyoming.

July 30, 2001 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
What an emotional few days. But as we leave today for Salt Lake, the people of Jackson, Wyoming are breathing a sigh of relief -- and a huge cheer of appreciation for the firefighters who saved every home in the threatened area. Still there are people who won't be comfortable that the fires are truly extinguished until the weather is snowy, the way it was nearly 600 days ago, when we began this expedition.

Next: Salt Lake City, a family reunion, and our departure for Asia.

August 5, 2001 in Park City, Utah. The family reunion Becky organized was a big success -- so for the benefit of those present, here is a group photo of the Sharpe family. Soon these people will go back to their homes. We, being homeless, head to Asia on Wednesday.

August 7, 2001 in Salt Lake City
Tomorrow morning, a new segment of the Expedition begins with flights to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Tokyo and then Bangkok. There, Jumbo and team will pick us up and, 30 hours after leaving Salt Lake, deliver us to Kanchanaburi, our home earlier this year -- a trip of 8,900 miles.

We have all kinds of donated medical supplies, two-way radios and personal items to take to Dr. McDaniel and his staff much further west in Thailand at the Kwai River Christian Hospital on the Thai/Burma border, where we volunteered earlier this year.

About two weeks later, we'll fly to Bali, Indonesia (a nation where the political situation has calmed somewhat) and begin exploration of the islands north and east of there. Two months after that we'll return to Thailand, then fly on to Nepal for minor trekking foothills of Mt. Everest and hope to experience for ourselves the effects on the population of the recent tragedy in the royal Nepalese family. We'll come back to Thailand for two months beginning in December to share the holidays with hospital staff and friends from America, and then head for Laos -- then Australia and New Zealand. We may not return to the USA for a full year, and are very excited as our expedition enters this new phase.

To our friends and family: we will miss you terribly. Our next entry will be from Asia...having passed Expedition milepost 92,000!

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