Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today marks the end of the fourth month of the Aylmer Express MoHo Extravaganza. So, as you already know, that means that it is time for a forth installment on how the budget is going. Our daily costs for each category are as follows:

Accommodation: $27 (AVG from Sept = $29, Aug = $30, July = $19)
Food: $49 (AVG from Sept = $52, Aug = $48, July = $48)
Entertainment: $28 (AVG from Sept = $27, Aug = $24, July = $19)
Misc: $30 (AVG from Sept = $32, Aug = $26, July = $25)
MoHo/Auto Maint: $14 (AVG from Sept = $12, Aug = $15, July = $15)
MoHo/Auto Gas: $36 (AVG from Sept = $37, Aug = $44, July = $48)

And our current km/day works out to be:
MoHo: 120 (AVG from Sept = 115, Aug = 128, July = 168)
Matrix: 63 (AVG from Sept = 62, Aug = 54, July = 39)

So this is interesting. The accommodation charges were creeping up as I had expected as we hit the west coast and now it looks like they are starting to fall again. Food costs are falling slightly but I don’t think this is a trend. The Entertainment costs also rose as we hit the west coast and now they are holding steady. That will only last until we hit Orlando I’m sure. The Misc category is hovering. Auto maintenance costs have remained relatively low and I am hoping that doesn’t change. And the fuel costs have dropped noticeably. You can see gas costs trend downward almost as soon as I left Canada which coincidentally happened to also be when the prices started to drop worldwide. I won’t complain. And the average distances per day for both the car and the MoHo seem to be settling but it will be interesting to see if these spikes when we finally make our mad dash home once the weather turns colder.

So back to our normally schedule blogging, It was mostly a driving day today but it did give us a chance to do some reading along the way. As we were heading from Meridian, Mississippi to Montgomery, Alabama it seemed only appropriate that we should bring our children up-to-date a little on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his place in history. We gave them some sobering background information on the history of black people in the United States so that they could better appreciate the events of the 1960’s involving MLK. Then, when we got to Selma, we actually walked across the same Edmund Pettus Bridge where, on March 7th 1965, it went down in history as the location of the Bloody Sunday incident where the police violently brought a peaceful Civil Rights march to a halt. It was hard to believe that in this small, sleepy town that something so unspeakable could have ever taken place. At lunch in Selma I fired up my computer and let the kids listen to MLK’s now famous “I have a dream” harangue (I am using the #1 definition NOT the #2) which he delivered in Washington D.C. back in 1963. I must admit that it seems incredible that as recently as the 60’s, right here where we were sitting, it was not possible for black kids and white kids to play together and that the black people living and working in the community were not allowed to vote. And it is hard for me to imagine the courage that people like Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and many others displayed in taking a stand against these injustices in those times, under those conditions. On our way to Montgomery we we drove along the same route that the Civil Rights marchers ultimately traveled alongs two weeks after Bloody Sunday. On this march they were accompanied by a National Guard escort, for the entire 50 miles (80 km) to Montgomery where they held a peaceful protest to highlight the fact that black people were still not allowed to vote in Alabama. We arrived in Montgomery and just managed to squeak into a campground by virtue of someone leaving right before us. The main selling feature for this location was that they had free WiFi access however, by the time we got set up, and I got the computer fired up, it turns out that they started having trouble with their modem. So the result was me detecting a very strong wireless signal connected to nothing. Less than ideal for blogging. So I am delayed once again in bringing you “the world according to Jeff”. Stay tuned for a flurry of blog activity at some point … assuming I ever get connected again!

Today’s word:

harangue \huh-RANG\, noun:
1. A speech addressed to a large public assembly.
2. A noisy or pompous speech; a rant.
3. To deliver a harangue to; to address by a harangue.
4. To make a harangue; to declaim.

# posted by Jeff, Chantal and the kids @ 10:26 AM