Growing up in a placid working class suburb of Louisville KY, there weren't families heading off for road trips to California every 3-4- summers, but that's what me and my mom did!.

My parents had been stationed in Long Beach for a few years during and after WW 2. He was an Army doctor. When he was mustered out in '49 we all returned to their ancestral homeland in the midwest - first SW Missouri (his home), then they got divorded and me and mom returned to Loiusville, the closest civilization to her southwest Indiana home. My mom really enjoyed her time in California, because every few years thereafter she and I would load ourselves into her big ole Chevrolet sedan and drive west. A couple of times I was allowed to bring a friend (great fun, memories we still share). Once we brought a friend of hers, a busybody neighbor with her spoiled daughter. That trip was not a success. Most trips it was just me and my mom.

Those were highlights of my youth – Staying in mid-range motels, taking a few days to get across the plains, few days visiting their Army buddy in Colorado, then on to California! Always Disneyland, always the Grand Canyon coming home, Yellowstone t-3 times, San Francisco one memorable time when I was in high school and almost "went native" :))

I definitely caught the cross-country travel bug.

By the mid-00's I was single and had moved to Reno. Reno turns out to be an excellent home base for travel all over the West. Straight shot west to the Bay Area, straight shot south to the LA-Sandiego megaplex, all points East on I-80, and north ... well, it kinda desolate up there, but Reno to Portland is a beautiful drive.

I was doing software work out of my home, and taking ever more ambitions trips and started thinking aboutI could use the ever more personal and powerful computer technology - the web, word processors, digital cameras - to convey travel experiences.

• Here is the first try from 2000.
• Here is the second try from 2002. Google maps wasn't a thing yet so I did a map by hand. :)
• Here is the massive third try. It's still pretty cool ... as long as you're viewing on a large device - NOT mobile friendly.
• The fourth try is finally mobile friendly (i.e. Bootstrap). Cool functionality. I fell in love with the changing color palettes, but it's just not very inviting.
• Trying to do better this time. Finally have a (I hope) engaging page design. You be the judge.

The rest of me on the internet:

• I was into Tai Chi ad the time, so the first domain I bought was cloudyhands.com. The first three sites above all started their life on that domain. In the early teens I became a two-domain man! I bought whufu.com and moved all my travel stuff there with some idea of giving it a stronger identity (whufu as a sort of bastard version of "where the f--l is it?"). I didn't have a clue. :)
• In early 2023 I gave up cloudyhands and released it back into the wild.
  The site may still be found here: cloudyhands.whufu.com
• My non-travel blog, which is mostly my various ever-increasing medical issues: Life for an increasingly old bachelor