The trip odometer on the Jeep read 2713. The psychic odometer read !!!!!!!!!!!xxx WOW #**?. On the trip back, the cowboys in Alpine who were there for the poetry gathering left verses in the west Texas sky. They hit the grill of the Jeep like bugs. The city limits of Austin rolled past and behind giving way to the foggy lights of Houston. Architect Carlos Jimenez captivated us with his generosity and quiet insights into architects, architecture, and being students of both. It reminded me of a similar moment 15 years ago when I heard Jerzy Soltan captivate a group of us with stories of LeCorbusier. Corb upon meeting Soltan for the first time declared him too short – Corb’s obsession with the Modulor preventing him from seeing an exception to universal proportion.

I believe we all realized that these moments don’t happen very often.

Rolling through Louisiana and Mississippi in a failed search for a hotel gave us a distant connection to both Katrina and Mardi Gras. Past Mobile we found two rooms and the Taurus headed home. The thing about travel is you go somewhere but the trip back feels like going into warp 9 in reverse. There is part of you that doesn’t catch up to the rest of you until later – the trailing part still being out there somewhere. You have to watch out for the whiplash when it snaps back.

As for the program part of the trip, the students (13 architecture thesis students, and 15 landscape architecture students) are working on proposing ideas for the decommissioned 45,000 acre Fort McClellan in Anniston Alabama. The students are working with the Joint Powers Authority who has oversight on the bases reintegration into the local and regional community. The student’s work will help the process of envisioning a new future for the base. McClellan harbors one of the last long leaf pine forests in the world and to the JPA’s credit they have been instrumental in making it the most recently designated National Wildlife Refuge in the United States. The hill on which the forest resides was used for artillery target practice limiting access. Ironically, the periodic fires necessary to maintain the long leaf ecology were facilitated by the explosions. Thanks to JPA members R.D. Downing, Pete Conroy, and Planner Miki Schneider for their help and support. Thanks to the faculty Liz Martin and David Pearson for their work.

Given the challenge of this complex and beautiful design project there was only one possible response: ROAD TRIP.