Travel

We Made It To Granite Falls

Bouncy House

And to welcome us, Donna’s brother and family arranged a party for us. Not really, it just happened that a local church was having a festival in the park practically next door to their house. With Bouncy Houses!

As usual with a vacation trip, there are tons of stories to tell and not enough time to tell them. I’ll try and create some draft posts with titles that will hopefully spur an actual post when we do get some down time or when we get back home.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1386

Seattle “Stoner Tour” Souviner T-Shirts

Usually when I go on vacation I send back postcards to my still stuck behind their desk co-workers, but for next week’s trip out west it might be different. I’m hoping that some enterprizing individual out in Seattle has decided to make up some I-502 relevant souviner T-Shirts, because something like the mock-ups below would make a perfect gift to bring back for them.

These will also make a nice bit of related merchandise for my Cannabis Cabana stores (opening soon in a empty lot near you.)

Oh Savannah!

Claire, Mark & Us

For the second time in a little more than a month we visited the city of Savannah, GA. In February it was a side trip & diversion in our escape from Ice-ageddon. This time it was to catch up with recently wed (6/13) friends Claire and Mark. They were in town from Lexington, VA for the big music festival, so we drove down to spend a couple hours walking around town, eating lunch and watching maritime traffic on the Savannah River with them.

On the way down, and more so on the way back, we grabbed a couple items off the Motoring Challenge checklist.

Started down , went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1300

Postcards from Big Bend

It has been a whole year since we were in the middle of the BKR and took a week off to visit west Texas. And it has been nearly as long that this post has been in my blog’s drafts folder awaiting completion. I don’t know why I didn’t ever finish it in the beginning, but I do know why I didn’t for the last 6 months or so, out of sight is out of mind. On the site’s backend admin page there was a spot that listed your drafts front and center when you logged in, but on one of the updates to the WordPress software that item for some reason disappeared. I recently discovered this during another update and now the drafts are listed again. Anyway…

Whenever I go on a big vacation I try and send back a postcard to each of my co-workers along the way to let them know I’m having a good time not at work while they are having a not so good time at work. This time when I mailed out the 6 cards, instead of writing something different on each card as I went, I took a blurb from the Big Bend National Park website and an explanation as to why the cards all came from the same spot this time, divided them into 6 somewhat equal chunks, one for each postcard and sent them off. I was hoping they would get the card, read the partial phrase, scratch their heads, compare notes and then put the cards together like a big jigsaw puzzle and marvel in my creativity. I put a #1 at the bottom of the card that had the beginning of the phrase to get them started.


[spoiler]No one comes to Big Bend by accident and most would say it is a big effort just • to get here. Once here, many decide that it is just big enough for them to want • to stay for a lifetime. Big Bend National Park encompasses over 800,000 • acres. You could stay forever and not see every nook and cranny. It’s a little • piece of paradise that most are unaware of. This is one of the least visited • parks in our National Park system. So even the solitude and the quiet are big here.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]We usually don’t have any • trouble finding postcards from all • the neat sights we see • on vacation, but Texas proved • the exception, so everyone gets • one from the same place.[/spoiler]

So much for curiosity and/or teamwork, each person got their card, looked at the pretty front, read the back, wondered if I might have been tired, drunk or just plain crazy from the heat, and pinned the postcard to their cubical wall. It wasn’t until I got back, gathered everyone’s cards together and showed them what I had done that they went, “Ahhhh.”

This year I may buy a post card, write out an individual sentiment on it, then cut it into 16 pieces, throw that into an envelope and mail it to them. Oooh, I just had an even better idea, but I don’t want to spoil it here…