June already... My 99 year old neighbor says the passing of time just keeps speeding up. Wowza... and there is always more to do. I'm brainstorming all sorts of simply mad and totally obscure ideas on the road as I'm driving. And stopping and talking to friends I don't get to see even half often enough has been quite stimulating as well. I'm currently thinking about how to "help" a process along. When I was chatting with my friend Barbara (with whom I stayed when I stopped in Lawrence, KS), who is the director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I suddenly had the realization that the most critical omission of women in society is in the area of women's knowledge. We need a cultural repository for women's information. Of course there are the women's studies programs across the country but so much of what we women know we have to rediscover each generation as there is no one place that women consistently pass through in life. I think there need to be regional (or better yet) local centers where women can stop in and find out about women's stuff whether it be woman-centered history, health, writing, art, design, technology, spirituality, politics, economics and the like... but that are not feminist nor academic based. Hmmmm.... Of course this also relates to my Gene Stratton Porter research that I'm doing while I'm here... in addition to just writing my little heart out.

Anyway... I'm in Illinois now and trying to decided where I want my first of many stops in Indiana -- my old stomping grounds -- to be. It may be Indy, W. Lafayette, Bloomington, Sylvan Lake, Ft. Wayne, Columbia City, Geneva, South Bend.... who knows? It will depend on where I can find the best place to write and do research.

Right now I'm at a hotel in Effingham, IL that I got a deal on by stopping at a rest stop Tourist info stop on I70 which was staffed with a visitor services person who found me the closest place I could stay with wi fi access and that had a great discount promo going. Smart State policy on Tourism to get people to stay in the state. If she hadn't have been there I'd have driven another hour when I was really too tired to drive just so I could get to Indiana that was my goal destination for the day for no particular reason.

The speed test here showed pretty good connectivity:

2004-06-01 07:32:42 EST: 1934 / 626
Your download speed : 1980889 bps, or 1934 kbps.
A 241.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 641943 bps, or 626 kbps.

Time for coffee.