Getting our kicks on Route 66 and staying in Motel 6's, we felt like we were tempting fate. It was hot, dang hot, in the Southwest and although the aircon was working, we didn't want to overheat our delicate Scandinavian ride. So we rode on with the windows down until we started climbing into the mountains around Santa Fe. The adobe buildings in Santa Fe were groovy, although the lack of parking and the abundance of tourists convinced us to move on.
We stopped quickly at an outdoor shop to inquire about climbing in the area. The guy who helped us turned out to be a R.I. ex-Patriot from East Greenwich who had hitchhiked out in the '70's to be a ski bum for a year. We told him about the time we were driving between Dallas and Ft. Worth on the interstate when a guy in a huge red truck yells at us to roll down the window (we thought we saw a gun rack). Hesitantly I do, and he asks. "Where y'all from in Rhode Island? My wife's from Warwick!!!" The Lil'Rhody diaspora. That was us. Little did we know just how far away from Rhode Island we were about to feel.

The Menil Collection, Houston

After hanging out with my aunt and uncle in Pensacola, on the beach (note: that's Eddy, not my aunt, with the goatee) and at Joe Patti's fish market, we made it to New Orleans and found out that every day is mardi gras on Bourbon Street. A few bad cajun meals later, one of which will always be known as the Boudin King's revenge, we were crossing the Sabine Pass into Texas in the pitch black night.

Mason's Bend Community Center, Hale County, Alabama

The reason for a trip to Alabama was to see Auburn University's Rural Studio's works. It turned out to be a real adventure.

Our tour of architectural sites in America started in Southwest Florida. The first stop was Florida Southern College, a site designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Lakeland, 30 miles east of Tampa. We also roamed Sarasota for the modern buildings termed Sarasota School of Architecture. Finally we made it up to Seaside and the new development Watercolor near Destin on the Panhandle, to see a community designed entirely by urban planners/architects.

Since our trip hasn't started yet, here's something to keep this site from languishing in blog limbo. We made a trip to Upstate New York earlier this year to see the new museum Dia : Beacon (that's the town it's in) and a building by Frank Gehry at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson.

Last summer we'd gone to Italy to see some great Renaissance buildings. This summer it's "modern" architecture in the U.S. There's no big plan, we just have a list of buildings all over the country and one month to see them. We also like to climb, hike, fish, and try local cuisine. We hope that people we know will keep checking this blog to see where we are and come find us if we we don't know where we are ourselves. We also hope people we don't necessarily know who want to see wonderful architecture will visit, and be inspired to make their own architectour!