I'm Back Baby!

I can hear it. You're reading this and saying "He was gone?"

It was a multiple day trip to PA, I left Wednesday morning and came back Thursday night. When I left we had just gotten a light snow dusting the Tuesday night (it's supposedly Spring now, right?). There wasn't really any snow on the roads, so it didn't impact the drive. Right as I was leaving, I noticed a bird at the bird feeder and managed to snap this shot. I lost a lot of time on the way up. I made the mistake of going up Rt 28 and I think it took about 45 minutes for me to go 15 miles. This trip up was the longest yet, it took me just over 4 hours to get there. Usually I manage the trip in three and a half hours. Luckily I had swapped out some CDs, so I had some new rotation material in the car for the trip. Making the cut this time was U2 "All That You Can't Leave Behind", Norah Jones "Feels Like Home" and just for grins I included "Invisible Touch" by Genesis (an 'oldie').

The following is a shot of one of the mountain passes I get to drive through on the way there. They literally carved right through the mountain to put in the road. This cut in the mountain is visible from miles away.



Next is shot of one of the churches (hmm, at least I think it's a church) visible from the road as you pass through the speed trap, uhh, I mean Cumberland. The speed limit on I68 drops from 65 down to 40 as you pass through Cumberland.



Once I got our facility in PA, I did a lot of whiteboard drawings, explaining how I think things should work, the usual. Don't have a lot to report. Unlike some of Curt's travels, the hotel (Fairfield Inn Marriot) was more than adequate (not as plush as Barry's mind you, but adequate). And it included a free continental breakfast (free is good). The only negative about the hotel room was I had was the window was eye level with the awning in front of the hotel entrance, so I couldn't see squat out the window, but it's not like I need to see a view of the edge of Uniontown anyway.

Life in PA is a lot cheaper than here. I went to dinner Wednesday night at a Chinese restaurant. The "all you can eat" buffet was $6.50, and $10.25 if you wanted access to the crab legs. So I splurged and had the crab legs. But get this, during the day the lunch buffet (again, "all you can eat") is $3.99. How the heck is this place staying in business? Or is it like this everywhere when you get away from the major metropolitan areas? After dinner I stopped by the Wal-Mart that was in the same shopping center as the restaurant and I felt like I was back home. Is every Wal-Mart laid out exactly the same across the nation? I swear I thought I was in the one by my work back home. After that I headed back to the hotel and watched Lost. This was just an odd experience. Watching TV without Tivo or a VCR. I can't remember the last time I did that. Real time television. It's a very odd concept now to wrap my head around. And evidently they interlace television shows with these advertisement things, I think they're called commercials. Truly bizarre stuff.

I talked to the kids before they went to bed Wednesday night. I heard Ginger ask if anyone missed me and they both said "No". Quinn talked to me a bit and told me about the chicks in his class and how some of the eggs hadn't hatched. And how one kid (Conner) has opened up with lid to the chicks without permission. Catherine got on and chatted for a bit too.

So I left early today after wrapping up a meeting with Hybrid Learning. I took a picture of this lighthouse that's on the side of the road in Maryland (we're not talking near the coast either). Not sure why it's there, but it made for a nice blurry picture through the window as I was driving by. I finally got back home around 6. I think I would have been home half an hour earlier had I not stayed on 28 all the way south. The thing is I even knew it was a mistake when I did it but foolishly thought, how bad can 28 be. You would have thought I would have learned my lesson on the drive up, but nope, you would be wrong.

When I got home, the kids had wrapped up some birthday presents for me (better late than never, right?). I got a new memory card for the Nintendo (Quinn told me he planned on using that too) and they got me the "Ultimate Spider-Man" game for the Nintendo. Now I just have to make some time to be able to play. I took the kids outside and we played for maybe 20 minutes before it got too cold and dark to stay out, then we came inside. It will be nice once Daylight Savings Time kicks in so we can actually be outside 'longer'. Tonight's new game upstairs before bed was "Rollercoaster", where the kids would sit in a laundry basket and have me push them around the room. Everyone except me loves the game.