Day Two, 9.19.08

Hi Team,

After a refreshing night of sleep, we were able to hit the road ahead of schedule at 8:55am and were headed off toward Hoschton, GA, a small suburb of Atlanta, to see another of Jane’s boyfriends about decaling our beloved RV, Stella.

As we entered Hoschton at about 2:30pm, we were greeted by hundreds, no thousands, of scarecrows. All were the typical scarecrow built on a cross and fully clothed but some were imitating human activities like working on a car or even playing a game of football across a field. These disturbing looking creatures were in front of almost every building, church and open field. We were beginning to wonder if there were any clothes left for the actual citizens of Hoschton.

When we arrived at the decal place and greeted Nick, Jane’s other boyfriend, one of the first questions out of our mouths was “What in the heck is going on in this town with all the scarecrows?” Nick reassuringly informed us that we had entered Hoschton in the midst of their attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most scarecrows in any city at one time. Hoschton is currently the host of over 5000 scarecrows. With our curiosity subsided, we left our baby Stella in Nick’s care to get all gussied up for the big show down in Texas. We decided to get a hotel in another small town, Winder, without scarecrows and for our own sanity.

Now, you may be asking yourself, who is crazy enough to journey through all of these miles, leaving the office behind for several weeks and heading all the way down to Texas to rough it, with little but a hair tie, in a RV? Let’s introduce the current rotation of Ground Team Ike:

Patricia Olmstead:

She may have just celebrated her 60^th birthday, but don’t be fooled. She is the everlasting bunny on this trip while Jane and I struggle through the long days and ride along throughout the 1000s of miles.

Jane Montoya:

The planner-organizer-extraordinar. She puts on the charm and has organized most everything, the generators, RV, decals, that will help make this project the memorable event everyone is hoping for.

Laura Parewski:

I’m recording video, still pictures and word descriptions of this great adventure, helping out with whatever I can, however I can.

We’re out, Keep on truckin’.