GIGANTIC INDEX – DAY 192

Number of months on the road: 6

Total miles traveled: 18,750

States covered: 43 (and the District of Columbia)

Total number of people we’ve met: 611

Average miles per gallon: 16

Number of times we used ridesharing (Lyft or Uber) in a city after we

parked and didn’t want to get the van back out in traffic: 26

The average number of car payments it cost us to pay for ridesharing services: 1

Number of van windshields we went through: 2

Number of high school football games we attended: 1

Number of high school football games we attended, where the home team won (“Let’s make some noise, Cougar fans!”): 1

Number of times we requested a damaged tire be aired up and remounted on our van after a menacing salesman tried to convince us an obvious all-terrain tire for a four-wheel drive truck was a perfectly fine replacement for our damaged one: 1

Number of problems we had with the previously damaged tire after that: 0

Hours we sat in a roadside park in the van and watched episodes of “All in the Family” after we accidentally ate a cookie that, unbeknownst to us, was not like the kind your grandma makes: 4

Number of older women who accosted us in a Mississippi bar where Brett was playing an open mic, bought our dinner and drinks, and insisted we park the van overnight in one of their driveways: 2

Approximate number of strangers we ate Thanksgiving dinner with in Austin: 25

After having all the conversations we’ve had, the percentage increase in our optimism, not because of government, but because of people: 11 (that’s statistically significant)

Where the answer – I have a contempt for him I usually reserve for snakes. He’s the kind of man, the kind of boy, that were we in the fifth grade, I would fight him every day, and my dad would buy me ice cream for it. – ranks among the most colorful things uttered during an interview, especially since it was delivered with a Southern accent and preceded by an esoteric reference to Edmund Burke: 1

The number of people we hope to talk to in the next five months: 217

The level of excitement we each have for our respective book, speech, and song writing projects: 11

Number of friends and neighbors we saw within minutes of driving onto our old block in Springfield: 8

Approximate number of weeks we’ll be “home” in Springfield before we head back out on the road: 6

How much we miss the road: lots

How glad we are to be home: very