Jennifer

Good afternoon everyone! Last call for photo submissions for our April AMERICAN ROAD photo contest! I will be adding a poll to the post later this afternoon (around 6:00 PM Eastern), which will list all of the photos submitted, and you can start voting! The winner will receive a prize from AMERICAN ROAD and have their photo displayed on the AMERICAN ROAD website home page! April 2007 AMERICAN ROAD photo contest Good luck!

You are correct; one photo entry per member, per contest, please! But, as we will have more photo contests, you'll have more chances to enter your terrific photos. Have fun!

Good day everyone! It's time for another American Road Forum contest! This contest will be a photo contest, and we want to see your best travel / road trip photos! The contest will span the next two weeks...here's how it will work: -Week One: In the first week of the contest, submit your best road trip photo by replying to this thread. To post a photo in a message, follow these steps: Find the "File Attachments" link below your post area, then browse to a photo on your local computer. (Make sure the file size is below 500K (preferably below 250K, and 800 X 600 ppi)). The photo can be any type of "road trip" photo you wish - landscapes, cityscape, small town main street, diner, motel, bridges, whatever! Describe the photo as you wish, but at least include the subject matter and the location. Deadline: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 -Week Two: In the second week of the contest (starting Tuesday, April 10, 2007), I will post a poll listing each of the entrants and the subject/location of their photo. Then it's time for you - our forum members - to decide on the winner! Vote for your favorite photo and on Monday, April 16, 2007, I will close the poll. The photo with the most votes wins a prize, and we will display your photo on the home page of the AMERICAN ROAD website! One photo entry per member, per contest, please. Good luck and have fun!!

I took care of the 15 minute time limit between messages, so you should have no problems trying to communicate more effectively among each other - I encourage that! As far as the chat function, Pat and I looked into it, and all chat options are accessible only by our website maintenance company. I will see if that is a possibility to make the change to the chat functionality.

Mortadella (the real Italian variety) is a salami made from pork sausage, though it's a little unique because of its spices. I have seen "American style" mortadella, which I think seems more like bologna. My favorite Italian deli meat is prosciutto anyway...a great sandwich is on Italian bread: prosciutto, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, and oil & vinegar or Italian dressing...mmmmm! And by "fresh mozzarella," I mean the kind you need to get in the specialty cheese area; it's a soft, pure white cheese, typically packaged in water....not the aged kind. Jennifer

Thanks for the previous story...that was very cool! Keep 'em coming!

Please join us for a special chat with Michelle Thompson on Sunday, January 14th at 8:00 PM. Michelle recently bicycled from her home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois to Costa Mesa, California along Route 66 to visit her brother, John, by Christmas. Michelle's journey is special because John has oral cancer and she wanted to raise awareness and money to help him fight the disease. To access the chat, just come to the forum and click on the "Live Chat" link on the upper right side of the page. We look forward to you joining us!

A hearty welcome aboard to you! Glad to have you with us, and I'm looking forward to hearing your road stories....you must have a number of them!

Denny, Thanks for the trip updates! I took a quick trip myself over Christmas to see my 99-year old grandmother. It was a last-minute trip I decided to make when I heard she wasn't doing too well, so due to the time constraints of having no remaining time off work and the sheer distance I needed to travel, I (most unfortunately) needed to superslab it from Indy to Connecticut. Thus I couldn't heed your advice on your site to only visit places south of my home! Luckily the weather was cooperative and it was unseasonably warm (but quite welcomed by me!). The only time I had off the evil-I was on the way home, I veered up north slightly from I-70 onto PA SR 18, then hooked up with US 22 west and crossed into Ohio to visit Steubenville and pay tribute to the great crooner, Dino Crocetti (aka Dean Martin!). I had my Dean Martin playlist on the MP3 player, naturally...I took a couple of photos in the area: a sign for Dean Martin Boulevard (SR 7 through Steubenville), a marker in his honor and the piece de resistance....a gorgeous mural honoring Dino...however, the fact that it was on the side of a Kroger supermarket was less than inspiring! I guess it was there because the building which houses a candy store called Gertrude Lee Candies, at the front of the shopping center, was the former home of Dean Martin's parents before they moved to LA to be with their son. Anyway, thanks again!

Hi there and welcome! I haven't taken US 60 in either direction, so I can't help with that...however, I am curious about your building of a teardrop trailer. My husband and I are fascinated with them and hopefully someday will buy one! Are you building it from a kit or plans? What kind of features do you have on it? Is it modern or retro? If we do get one, we probably won't get anything too elaborate, but I at least wanted a functional galley in the back. I can't imagine us using it to make anything complicated, but it might be cool to make some meals on the road, so I'd like some decent storage for cooking utensils, room for a gas stovetop, and a built in cooler.

The new podcast is up and available on the American Road website. Check it out! American Road Programming and Multimedia The podcast features Foster Braun, along with Thomas and Becky Repp, speaking with author Rick Goldschmidt on Bumble, the abominable snow monster from the 1964 classic television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Don't forget that you will also have a chance to speak with Rick Goldschmidt this coming Thursday, December 21st at 8:00 PM EST! For details about the chat, click here.

We have a winner....!!! Congratulations to the keen observation of Alex Burr, who correctly identified the location of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - located in none other than your humble forum hosts' hometown of Speedway, Indiana! Here is the complete "original" photo (sans American Road magazine), as taken on the day of last year's Indy 500: Pat in front of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway For next month's contest, I hope it won't be so easy!! So, get your copy of AMERICAN ROAD out, hit the road, and send me a photo of you with the magazine and it might be your photo! Travel well! P.S. When you click on the photo link, if you get my homepage and not the image, right click and "copy link" and paste it directly into the address box of your browser and that should work....sorry for any inconvenience!

The contest photo has been updated and a few more spots revealed! The photo is still contained in the first post, above. Click on the thumbnail image within the post to enlarge. E-mail replies to Pat (pbremer at americanroadmagazine.com) or Jennifer (jbremer at americanroadmagazine.com - remove the spaces and substitute the at with @, of course!) Good luck!

Good evening everyone! We are excited to launch our new monthly contest and we hope it will encourage everyone to travel with AMERICAN ROAD on our nation's great roads! Starting next month, each contest will offer *two * chances to win a prize, as follows: 1) PART 1 - We want to see your travels with AMERICAN ROAD Magazine! Have your photo taken with a copy of AMERICAN ROAD in front of a recognizable landmark or area and submit your entry (as a JPG file) to either Pat or myself at the e-mail address(es) below. Be sure to let us know: your name and where the photo was taken, just in case we don't know! If your photo is selected for the month, you win! 2) PART 2 - The winning photo will be displayed in a post on the forum...this will be the 2nd part of the contest, where the rest of the forum members get a chance to win too! Here's how it will work....I will "hide" the winning photo, and every other day will "reveal" a small part of the photo. As the photo is revealed, the first person to contact either Pat or me at the e-mail address(s) below with the correct location of the photo wins! To get us started this month, we are posting a photo...keep checking back to see the photo revealed and send us your guess! Good luck and be ready to submit YOUR photos for the January contest! Rules: Have your photo taken with a copy of AMERICAN ROAD magazine in front of a recognizable landmark or area. Send a JPG file to Pat (pbremer at americanroadmagazine.com) or Jennifer (jbremer at americanroadmagazine.com - remove the spaces and substitute the at with @, of course!). You can also e-mail us through the forum. Contestants may submit as many photos of themselves as they wish per contest, provided they are of different locations. All photos submitted are eligible for that month's contest only and will be discarded after the contest ends. However, you are free to resubmit any of your photos for the next contest. The forum member whose photo is selected wins a prize for the first part of the contest, but obviously is ineligible for the second part of the contest!

Ask and ye shall receive as they say...here is a link to a PDF version of the file, which is updated shortly after each issue is out. AMERICAN ROAD Magazine Index

Very cool news!!!

Thanks Kent - I appreciate that. We're going to try to get out there the 2nd weekend in November, I'm looking forward to it!

I know there's a few of you out there, I have a question. I'd like to head to St. Louis in the next few weeks, and particularly to the area known as The Hill. I understand that it is known as St. Louis' "Little Italy" and I'm anxious to see what they have in the way of Italian markets, specialty stores, etc. Any suggestions as to how to make the most of my visit? Is it easy to get around? Park? Shop? There's probably alot of good Italian restaurants - any experiences, suggestions, etc. are welcome! Mille grazie! (A million thanks!) Jennifer

Good evening!! It's time for our October forum contest....and we want you to stir up discussion! This month, the forum member who makes the most interesting post, will win their choice of a Questar DVD from our Hitching Post. Happy posting!

Thanks for the trip report Denny! I really wanted to go, but our most recent roadie addition (aka my daughter Amber) is not fully licensed yet, and thus, I was on call this weekend when she had to work. But, alas, I count the days, hours and minutes until freedom rings, this Saturday morning at 9:30 AM! Sorry to hear about the car...bummer! Sounds like you managed OK...lucky! I would have gotten myself into some kind of jam, I'm sure.

I care - thanks for posting that Denny! What bold stuff won't work for you? Bold text? Jennifer

I'm not actually sure how Becky does the newsletter. It would probably be preferable to keep the newsletter within a post, rather than as an attachment. I can check on how to compose a document offline, and then copy and paste it into a post. Until then, the attachment option is viable, and it seems we have space available. I'm not sure how or where that number gets set, but a simple html file shouldn't be too much of a space hog for now. Any other insights or solutions you might have on this issue (if any) are most welcome Denny! Jennifer

The way I do it, is to type the text first, then highlight it, and then change the attribute, such as bold, italic, size, etc. I think the default font is trebuchet. The font size, rather than point size, is represented as a fixed number and some browsers map them to various sizes. If you look to the left of the screen, directly under the smilies, there is a link that says BB Code help. That will show you the code you would need to add to make your links clickable, in lieu of using the insert hyperlink function. However, I suggest, you try the option below... If it's an e-mail with just a couple of links, you might insert them using the link feature, or the BB code. If it's the newsletter you mentioned with many links, that would be tedious. In that case, the easiest way to accomplish what you want to do is to type your newsletter in whatever Office product you use, and save it as an HTML file. Then, you can attach the HTML file to your post and direct the reader to click on the attachment. I have attached such a file as an example. See reply above. Let me know if that works! Please click this "sample newsletter": test.htm

Well, fortunately I know what Rocky Mountain oysters so I can avoid them...on the other hand, if they were actually oysters of the common variety, I'd avoid those too, since I don't like them. I do like fried clams, but I digress. So, the area of Colorado was called Severance...seems appropriate!!