Here is the speech schedule for the next 10 days:
Saturday - Helena, Montana
Tuesday - Juneau, Alaska
Wednesday - Fairbanks, Alaska
Saturday - (Noon) Green Valley, Arizona
Saturday - (Evening) Tuscon, Arizona

These are all Lincoln Day speeches. This trip - just under 10,000 air miles - would have taken Lincoln, riding on horseback - about-three-and-a-half months.

Ok. First of all I KNOW that it is cold in Alaska in the winter. I watch The Discovery Channel. I saw "Nanook of the North" when I was in grammar school. I can read the weather on the Internet.

Just to review the bidding, as this is being written, the night before leaving on this trek, here are the expected low temps for tonight:
Alexandria: 33
Helena: 35
Juneau: 19
Fairbanks: -7
Tucson: 39

I haven't focused on this trip because I've had a very busy week. As follows:

I don't think I have mentioned this to you, but The Lad has been promoted to the White House where he is a Senior Lead Advance Representative for the President.

Anyway he did the event in Pittsburgh and got home late in the afternoon. He was leaving the next morning to advance another trip so we decided to grab dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Arlington, Virginia.

The MDofS&P was coming from work so, she just pulled up in front of Mullings Central and I hopped in. It was a very cold night so we were both bundled up

About a third of the way there I pressed the button to lower the window next to me on the passenger side about half-way so I could sneeze.

In one of those disappointing moments which we all have to endure, no sneeze was forthcoming.

But the window wouldn't go back up. I lowered it some more thinking it was just stuck in the track. Now it was opened about 60 percent of the way. Undaunted - and thinking, as I have so often in my life, that repeating some failed maneuver will somehow lead to a different result - I ended up with the window all the way down and very, very cold air whipping through the car.

"Roll the window back up," The MD said.

"It's stuck," I answered continuing to press the toggle switch to no avail.

"What did you do to it?

"I didn't do anything. It broke."

"Why did you open it in the first place?"

"Because I thought I was going to sneeze."

"Why didn't you sneeze into your hand?"

"Wh-What? I'll tell you what. Next time I have to sneeze I'll just sneeze on you."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"What would you do? Pull over so I could open the door? I didn't know the window was going to get stuck."

"It's cold," she said, turning the heat up to 275 degrees.

We drove along with the right side of our collars tucked against the ears facing the offending window.

"My feet are getting hot," I said.

"Hmph," is I believe the correct spelling of her response.

When we pulled up to the restaurant I got out and, using both hands pulled on the window while she pressed the button. Lo and behold the window creaked up into the closed position and all was well.

This story ends thus:

The next night while eating dinner I asked the MDofS&P if she had tried that window.

"No," she said. "Of course not. If it didn't work I would have had to drive with it open," she said pausing for effect, " - again."

"That," I said, "is as good a definition of the difference between men and women as exists. No man would have been able to drive from here, to the District, and back without at least trying it."

"That," she said, "is yet another reason why women live longer than men."

The next morning she took the Mullmobile for a two-day road trip and left her car for me. My first act, upon exiting the garage, was to try the window. I had to drive most of the day with the window down about a quarter of the way. I'm not stupid. Well, I'm not all-the-way-down stupid. I spent a good portion of the afternoon getting the window to go back up.

Don't tell.

I was invited to a lunch at the Chinese Embassy earlier this week. I'm not certain why, but I went and I - more or less - behaved.

It was a very nice event and our host, the Deputy Chief of Mission, Mr. He Yafei, was extremely charming. At one point I was - as were most of the Americans - struggling with my chopsticks. The gentleman sitting next to me signaled to a waiter and a knife and fork appeared.

"I'm left-handed." I said, "and these are right-handed chopsticks. I you had left-handed chopsticks you would see that I'm dynamite."

Jerry Seinfeld has a riff about chopsticks. "Why do Chinese people continue to use them," he asks, "It's not like they haven't seen forks and knives."

Dennis Whitfield, who is a long-time friend and now a senior person at the National Federation of Independent Business, suffered a minor heart attack a couple of weeks ago while on a trip out of town and underwent coronary bypass surgery.

As sometimes happens, the incision developed an infection so, after returning home, he was tossed back into the hospital.

I have been through this sort of thing so I drove over (with the window down a little) to visit with him for an hour or so.

A lot of people are intimidated by hospitals. I probably am, too, but not by cardiac wards. I know my way around them.

The Inova Hospital is located in Fairfax, Virginia on Gallows Road.

I walked into Dennis' room, stood at the foot of his bed, arms akimbo, and delivered the following:

I just want to know why you would check into a hospital located on - GALLOWS Road. In fact, why would they put a hospital here in the first place? Was it a marketing ploy? Did they need the business? Did they used to advertise as specializing in rope burns? On the throat?

(Making the pinky-finger-and-thumb-phone-call-signal) Hello? Can I have directions to the hospital?

(Switching hands)Come up Gallows Road.

Uh huh.

Continue until you pass Cemetery Drive and turn left

Ok.

Go until you hit Dead Man's Curve and we'll be on your right.

Got it.

If you get to Ebola Boulevard you've gone too far.

It was good to see him laugh.

So on to the trip. The route of travel has me passing through Salt Lake City airport not once, not twice, but three times. This, in the midst of the Olympics.

As it isgoing to be cold I have decided to wear my cold weather hiking boots and pack sneakers, Docksiders and dress shoes. I assume I'll have to take the boots off to get through security at Reagan National, but from there to Atlanta to Salt Lake City to Helena I don't intend to leave the secure area so it should be a one-time only thing.

This new shoe deal means that, in addition to all the other things you have to remember, you now have to check and make sure your socks don't have holes. This is another difference between men and women. Most men understand this concept: A hole in the bottom of your sock - as opposed to the back of the ankle - will not show. So that sock is perfectly serviceable.

But not if you have to wag your tootsies at the airport.

AND now that Congressman John Dingell had to strip to his shorts at a security check point, you have to be careful about those garments as well. Remember when we were young and your mother said you had to wear clean underwear in case you got hit by a car?

First of all, I have never heard of a hospital refusing to treat a little boy who had been hit by a car pending the arrival of his mother with the clean underwear.

Second, I misunderstood my mother. I thought the rule was: If you were wearing clean underwear you wouldn't get hit by a car.

I actually thought that was the rule until I was about 37 years old.

Oh, here's some good news: Wednesday afternoon Alaska was hit by two - count 'em folks - two earthquakes. One wire story quoted waitress Memory Moore at the Sunrise Grill and Pancake House in Anchorage that the second one was so strong "I thought it was going to turn the pie case over."

Memory Moore. If that isn't a name straight out of Northern Exposure, I don' t now what is.

TOMORROW: Off to Montana!