The two of us, happy, thinking our transmission was fixed the first time...

North Brunswick, NJ - Well, here we were back in North Brunswick. This was NOT in the plans. Michael's parents were very gracious to let us stay with them for what was becoming an unknown amount of time. The RV had only let us travel for one hour before doing its usual breakdown, smoking and smelling bad with the fluid leaking all over the place on Friday of Labor Day weekend. That meant there would be no moving until Tuesday on anything. While we waited for the problems with it to be solved back at the tranny shop in North Brunswick, we watched a lot of television, moped around the house, ate at the yummy Indian buffet, biked to the Borders. Anything that would pass the time. Our spirits began to fall as we watched September slip away and the Autumn move in, still without our vehicle/ home ready for the journey that we had planned around it. We were OK with being spontaneous, but this was getting ridiculous. Michael's parents were very supportive and tried to help in whatever ways they could, letting us use their cars, buying us comfort vegetarian food, etc. Michelle's parents called and said their piece to our incompetent mechanic. Friends called and tried to encourage us. It was a hard time, that finally ended on the last weekend in September when the RV got out of the shop and travelled to Export, PA (Michelle's family outside of Pittsburgh), a 7 hour journey, without any bad leaks or breakdowns. We had thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Michael's family, but we were glad to move in a westward direction after our long delay.

Export, PA - We spent a wonderful two weeks with Michelle's family in Export, outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Michael was excited because he was able to watch both football and the baseball playoffs. (Sadly, he was rooting for the Cubs.)

Our main goal of our stop in Export, besides hanging out with the fam, was to get some work done on the RV. We managed to get everything checked off our "to-do" list (of which, Michelle's are famous). Michelle's dad is a genius when it comes to cars, so he helped us out with much-needed tires, wipers, and he put on a new muffler system that doesn't have a catalytic converter. He was excited about turning it into a hot-rod! (Speaking of hot-rods, he also builds a unique cooling water pump for engines. Check it out on his website, which Michael designed.) Michelle and her mother also decorated the inside of the RV, making and putting up curtains, hiding some of the old upholstery, and more. Michelle's dad helped Michael make a box for his computer and fix the clearence lights. Michelle's brother Mike fixed the radio, and her other brother Caleb tried to teach Michael the basics on the guitar, Michael's new instrument of choice. Strum strum strum strum....

We pulled out of Pittsburgh feeling good about how the RV was running and confident about the rest of the trip.

Colombus, OH - Our first day in Ohio was uneventful. We spent the night outside of Colombus in a Wal-Mart parking lot (free) and woke up and headed into town. Michael called Kevin Snyder (friend from way back when) and left a message. Then we headed to a park along the dam. We spent the day there: hanging out, hiking, cooking on our little stove. We also called Michelle's uncle and cousin to see if they were in town. Not hearing from anyone, we headed out to find a place to sleep. While driving, Kevin called and invited us over. So we hung out with Kevin and Cori Snyder in their new house. After an evening of old camp stories and lots of laughs, they let us stay in their guest room. We spent a few days there; talking, laughing, catching up. On Sunday, we rode our bikes to church where Kevin is the head pastor. We had an amazing time with Kevin and Cori. It was so good to be able to start the "visiting" part of our trip with such fine hosts and good friends.

Indian Lake State Park, OH - 10/20 - In our transition between Columbus and Indiana, we stopped at Indian Lake State Park on the western side of Ohio. It was a quiet little park and we enjoyed the scenery. (We've never seen so many orange lady bugs! At least that's what we thought they were, but they are actually a totally different type of beetle that got accidently brought to the US and has become a sort of plague in the midwest! Some of them bite. OW! There were TONS of them by this lake.) We tested out our new inverter that night by running Michael's computer and watching "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and we got through the whole thing without coming close to draining our deep-cycle battery! The next morning, Michelle talked to Scott and her folks at Kairos House, and after lunch we headed out to LaGrange, Indiana to meet Michael's friend from high-school, Chuck Reed, and his family. We had pizza with Chuck, Corinne, Genesis, Ashton, and Gabriel and headed back to their friends' place in Rome City where they were living in a sort of pseudo-community of sorts that is actually overrun with children under the age of 4!

The Reeds and Hysers taught us a lot about parenting Click on their picture to see more autumn visits!

Rome City, IN - 10/21- The Hysers were the family that the Reeds were staying with until they are able to close on their own new home, and this family graciously hosted us in their house-under-construction. (We were quite at home with the drywall dust!) Britt, Kathy and little Britt Hyser were a blast to spend time with, and we learned a lot from their little family, as well as the Reeds. Rome City and the surrounding towns are actually considered "Amish Country, and there are horse drawn buggies and hitching posts everywhere, even at the "local" Wal-Mart! Kathy and Lil' Britt took us to the Menno-Hof museum in Shipshawana where we learned all about the Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite communities. It was so interesting! We even visited a cheese factory. On our last evening there, we (michael and michelle) made a spaghetti dinner for the whole crew of us and tried to glean more information from these two little families about kids, parenting, community, God. It was a great time.

Detroit, MI - 10/24 - A family we were really excited about spending time with was the Wylie-Kellermans of Detroit. Michelle knows Bill, Jeanie and Lydia through Word and World. When we arrived in Detroit, it happened that Lydia, the oldest daughter, had organized "Just Peace", a conference with workshops and performances at her high school and we went to check it out. Lydia had done a great job and we enjoyed our evening at the conference. We also met up with our friend Jim Perkinson who we spent time with late into the evening talking about community, art, reconciliation, privilege, power.... It was quite a conversation there at the Cass Cafe in downtown Detroit.

The rest of the weekend spent with the W-K's was rich and full. We saw Lucy, the younger daughter, play soccer in the rain (she was great!). We traveled to the "thumb" of Michigan to their cottage in Port Senilac where we shared food, insights, beauty, and euchre. (That's a card game we-- michael and michelle-- had never played.) We joined Bill and Jeanie for church, we walked along the banks of Lake Huron on a clear and cold day. We met the Catholic Workers who operate Day House downtown and gleaned knowledge from their experiences. Then it was time to return to the W-K's house and celebrate "Onion Day," a holiday created 5 years ago by Lucy, then 8, as a coping mechanism to help her and her family deal with her mother's brain cancer. We were invited into this celebration with them, and what a wonderful time it was! (We both agree that it was well worth having to go through the frustration of being more than a month behind schedule for the sake of us getting to spend Onion Day, October 25, with this family.) We left there with poems, a pitcher of light, homemade chocolates, and full hearts.
Our time in Detroit was still not over. We headed to Roseville to visit with Jeff Brown (lived at tsw for a year +) and his mom, Dorothy. They fed us chicago-style pizza and told stories about Detroit and Jeff's childhood! Jeff also gave us a space-heater which would prove to come in very handy in the coming weeks!

Ann Arbor, MI - 10/27 - So in Ann Arbor we did laundry. At a laundromat. We expected to connect with our friend Scott Kreuger, but we couldn't get in touch with him. So we did laundry, saw "Mystic River," and headed to...

Holland, MI - 10/28 - Holland was not a stop we originally intended to make. However, Shane and Brooke had been there a few weeks earlier and said we needed to connect with people from a new church called "The Vine." So we met and stayed with Brian and Christina Aulich, their children Jarrad and Kaylyn, and spent an evening with their friends Mike and Karyl. We shared experiences and insights and welcomed them into our journey.

Grand Rapids, MI - 10/30 - This stop was another surprise, but we needed to met Jeff Brown's wife Stacy, and she was staying with her parents in this fine town. So we met the Smiths (Yes, Stacy went from Smith to Brown), played LOTR RISK, colored, ate Chinese. Jeff chose a great partner for life. We were excited to spend time with them.

Grand Mere State Park, MI - 10/31- On our way to Chicago, we stopped to make lunch in this park. At first glance it just seemed to be a park with a nice walking path through the woods. But upon further investigation, we discovered the most beautiful scenes of our trip so far. After trudging through the woods, you come upon dunes, and a vision of Lake Michigan bursting out of the Autumn leaves on the trees that frame the water. It was fabulous. We tarried there much longer than we expected. (Michael created a pretty fabulous dinner for us as well.)

The sign outside of the Stone Soup Co-Op. A great place, a great name.

Chicago, IL - 10/31 - Here's where things get a little, um, hectic. In a very good way, of course. We got to the Windy City on this cold Halloween night and headed to a Harvest party at River City Community Church in Logan Square to see our friend, Daniel Hill, who had recently been a part of getting this fledgling church off the ground. We didn't see much of Daniel; we ate lots of Mexican food, found an Anarchist bookstore, and had some great conversations with new friends: Brandon, Justin, Chris, Brentin, and Nate-- who offered for us to stay at his place that night, which we did.
The next day we had lunch with Marylou Coyne in Palatine in her apartment. It was great to spend time with Marylou, a friend who had come to the simple way for a visit a few years ago. She talked about HELPS, a ministry that she was, and no longer is, involved in, as well as other topics. The conversation was a help to us as we shared in the journey with Marylou. She also took us to Axis, a church service for "twenty-somethings" at Willow Creek Community Church. TSW has had an interesting relationship with Axis and Willow over the past few years. We also ran into Chico, a young man who has been known around the simple way for his Instant Messaging of us. Then we went back to Chicago to stay with old Philly friends, Jamie and Stacy Pfluecke.
In the morning we went to a little Methodist church where they had some amazing singing even though there were only 50 people there. Luckily, the church was having a pot-luck lunch, so we stayed and dined. Michael was excited about watching football with Jamie, while Michelle helped Stacy proof-read her mid-term. That night, we went to the "Stone Soup Co-Op" to hear a presentation sponsored by the Voices in the Wilderness. It was a conversation with Bill Quigley about his new book, Ending Poverty. Afterwards we got a tour of the co-op by Tom, who works for the VITW. We had a great conversation about community and different aspects of community. They have a chapel that rocks the socks off ours! We got a place to stay that night by talking to Maureen, a woman we met there, before the presentation. We told her about our trip and what we were doing and she invited us to her house for the night. It was a great night. We stayed up and talked about her history, living in a Catholic Worker, the school system, and more.
That morning we met Kazi Joshua for a chapel service at North Park University. The chapel service was led by people who just got back from a racial-reconciliation retreat. It was extremely powerful. We spent time picking his brain about community over lunch in the college cafeteria (a beginning of a trend). Then we drove to Moody College and hung out with Candy Gibson, a student that has come to tsw many, many times. She introduced us to Bob Smith, a professor there, and we talked over dinner in the cafeteria. That evening, we went and stayed with Kazi. He drove us around the neighborhood (we saw where Hon Rev Louis Farakhan lives) and then took us to the University of Chicago for more conversation.

DeKalb, IL - 11/04 - Taking our time after we woke up, we headed to Trinity Christian College (noticing the trend yet?) and hung out with some folks that had perviously visited simple way. Beth and Abe took us out to some really good deep-dish pizza joint and we finally met Mike, Abe's roommate. It was also a good surprise to see Ruth who also had visited us. We left there to go to a concert that was organized by our good friend, Curt Disher. Though it took us a long time to get there (weather), it was good to see him. The concert was good (Robert Randolph and the Family Band), but it sounded even better to Mike from outside the hall (he is getting a little older)! We stayed with Curt off campus (yes - another college - Northern Ill State Univ) and stayed up talking until 2am.

Check the date! Mike with his birthday present!

Bloomington, IL - 11/05 - Our day was spent, in celebration of Michael's birthday (28 - he takes late cards!), searching for the perfect space to watch the third installment of the Matrix trilogy. He will spare you all his review, needless to say, he was ecstatic. After the movie, we went to visit Rob Hoover, a student at Ill State (trend) who had visited tsw this summer and he came and visited us at camp with the rest of the simples. Michelle and he didn't, let's say, hit it off really well during the summer, so we were a little trepidatious going into this visit. However, we needn't have worried as we had an amazing time visiting with him, his roommates (Eric cooked us some great food), and his other friends. (In all we hung out with Rob, Eric, Annie, Chuck, D, Keith, his fish, maybe more.) We had many good conversations about community and following Jesus. That night, we splurged on a hotel to celebrate Michael's birthday.

Greenfield, IL - 11/06 - One place that we always stop on a road trip is this small (pop 1200) farming community. About 28-years-and-one-day ago Michael was born here. Though he didn't spend much time here, there are still friends and near-family here. Pat and Charlie Theivagt invited us into their home and gave us a great place to rest and catch our breath and wait for our mail. We have biked all over this town, from the store to church, to the library. It's been a great time catching up and learning a lot more about Michael's history. There are people here that have kept up with the Brixes ever since they left. One highlight was having lunch with "Grandma" Rosie. She told many stories about Michael's first few years. She was in the hospital when he was born! The Theivagt's also have a house guest who was friends with the Brix parents. Tom has been great to get to know. We've been able to try many new recipes from our new cookbook. (Just a little plug... try Amazon.com to buy used books. We bought this 1001 vegetarian recipes book for 4 dollars. It was 35 bucks in the store!) So, now we'll be great cooks when we get back to Philly.

Our next plan is to camp for a few weeks, so there won't be any updates. We need to process all of the amazing things we've learned and people we've seen. So, hopefully, when you hear from us next, we'll be in Seattle,WA.