Open road

I'm kinda-sorta sorry for the extended posting absence. I used to travelblog, but I used to be single, too. Now, rather than share my photos and experiences with the world at large, I share them with my wife. This is, on the whole, a far more satisfying experience.

I made the legendary California-Maine-California drive. Not exactly corner-to-corner, but corner state-to-corner state. It was a 29-state, 9,200 mile drive, accompanied on the outbound leg by my dad, and the return leg by my wife.

Somewhere in the middle, roundabout Vermont, I get a master's degree. It's fancy, has gold leaf on it, and is the size of my two previous college diplomas combined. Highly perceptive readers (if I have any readers left) will have noticed the subtle change in my banner graphic.

The trip itself was great. On the way out we hit Carlsbad Caverns, San Antonio's Riverwalk, smelly & humid New Orleans, a Mound Builder site in Mississippi, a cracking great thunderstorm atop the Great Smoky Mountains, a Virginia village named Meadows of Dan, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the return trip, we were disdained at Vermont's Cabot Creamery for daring to ask for cheese curds, put the business of an entire maple syrup outlet on hold while the staff tried to figure out what a baby loon is called, climbed Mount Washington, had ice cream on Cape Cod, saw a Cardinals (baseball) game from 630 feet up, discovered that Dodge City is no Tombstone, clumb Pike's Peak, got 4th of July sunburns, and slogged (hopefully for the second-to-last time) across northern Nevada again.

Now that's a road trip.