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Grandmother Love

Last Thursday, several of us--myself, Keith, my mom, grandmother, and brother--played hooky (for all or part of the day) and met for lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Winter Haven. Keith snapped this uber-cute picture of me and my sweet grandmother waiting for our nachos to arrive.

My grandmother has always been one of my favorite people. She moved to Florida from Alabama to be closer to her family after my grandfather died and left her with four children, the two boys still living at home. Other than the people themselves, her house, which she had built in the late 60s, has been the one constant in my life. It's familiar and comfortable in a way that only 38 years of parties, family gatherings, holidays, and sleep-overs can make it.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time with her. As an adult, I don't spend nearly as much time with her as I'd like, but she is always holding a dear and special place in my heart and thoughts. I love her very much. Can't you tell by how happy I am to be with her?

Best of Luck, Johnny

This morning at about 6:30 a.m. Keith and I arrived at our polling location to participate in the democratic process. The doors opened promptly at 7 a.m., and we were on our way home by 7:45.

The election season has been particularly painful this year and full of more hate than usual. Even though I most definitely have an opinion about the candidates, I'll be happy when today is at an end and this election is behind us.

A Quiz for Your Amusement

For all my friends out there who know just how much I love Jane Austen, I thought I'd amuse you all by taking the Jane Austen Heroines Quiz to determine which saucy Austen wench (surely there is such a thing?) I am.

The results:

You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of ridiculousness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed.

Since I have absolutely no way of knowing how on-target the results are (though I certainly like and agree with the "intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive" part), I'll have to trust you to let me know. And if you should decide to take the quiz, you can tell me how accurate I should believe your results are.

You can also take bets on whether this will make me lean toward actually reading Pride and Prejudice.

It's truly amazing the lengths I'll go to for your enjoyment.

Anatomy of a Vacation

Number of days gone from home: 21

Total miles driven: 5,920

Number of flat tires: 1

Number of states entered: 15 (Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida)

Only state consistently out of gas, because panic drives the people there to make poor purchasing decisions: Georgia

Number of times driving across the Continental Divide: 2 (in Colorado and New Mexico)

Favorite dining experience in Colorado: The Wines of Colorado, where we ate lunch creekside on the patio and enjoyed the dappled Colorado sun

Number of National Parks and/or Monuments visited: 8 (Jefferson National Expansion Memorial--St. Louis Arch, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Petrified Forest/Painted Desert, Carlsbad Caverns, Sunset Crater Volcano)

Number of State Parks visited: 2 (Goblin Valley, Red Canyon)

Best food in Utah: Panatele's Desert Deli in Moab, Utah, where the grilled cheese sandwich is a gourmet experience

Best coffeehouse: The Mean Bean in Springdale, Utah

Best restaurant service: Moab Diner, where the waiter not only brought sprouts to the table to bridge the language gap with our French friends but also gave me the recipe for the diner's honey dijon dressing

Nights sleeping in a tent: 7

Favorite Campground: Moab Rim Campark, which has hot showers, grass, and wi-fi

Coldest night in a tent: 32 degrees

Keith's favorite hikes: Park Avenue in Arches, Grand View Point trail in Canyonlands, and Angels Landing in Zion

Rita's favorite hikes: Goblin Valley, The Narrows in Zion, anything involving petroglyphs

A sampling of animal sightings: a couple coyote, a bald eagle, many ravens, chipmunks, the fattest squirrels ever, mule deer, pronghorn sheep, a tarantula, a roadrunner, a peregrine falcon, black-tailed jackrabbit

Closest critter encounter: a chipmunk tried to crawl into Rita's pocket in order to get closer to the yummy trail mix she wasn't sharing

Nights in a motel: 7

Favorite motel: White Sands Motel in Alamogordo, NM, because it looked like it was straight off of Route 66

Least favorite motel experience: the Super 8 in Winslow, Arizona, not because the room wasn't nice but because the busload of fellow travelers yelling at each other through the halls all night deserved the 6 am wake-up calls Keith started making

Best song heard on the radio: Mexican Dog by Chute Nine on Keith's beloved 95.3 the Range in Dallas

Nights with friends and family: 7

Number of photographs taken: in excess of 1700

Most used items: Nalgene bottles to keep us hydrated in the desert and Burt's Bees lip balm

Oddest gift received: a Schick Quattro from the proprietress of the Zion Park Motel, who apparently thought Keith's facial hair was out of control

Number of laps Happy Beagle did around the backyard when we arrived back in Atlanta: too many to count

Keeping the Faith

While I have been wandering around the American Southwest, my latest article was posted by The Southwest Orlando Bulletin. This article is about a woman I recently had the privilege to interview. She is a true inspiration as she journeys through a fight with breast cancer.

Other Things We've Enjoyed

• Spending four days with Bruno and his girlfriend. Bruno is one of the young men we hosted as an exchange student several years ago. In the past four days we've done quite a bit of sight-seeing.
• Waking up frozen. Monday night we made the brilliant decision to camp out at Bryce Canyon National Park, which has a reputation for being cold. When we woke up yesterday morning, it was just at freezing. We promptly decided to spend the next night in a motel.
• Waking up very warm and toasty.
• Enjoying some fall color. Apparently, on the first day of autumn, fall color is easy to find at the right altitude.
• Watching a herd of mule deer feeding casually on the lawn at the Zion Lodge in Zion National Park, completely oblivious to the many tourists gathered around watching their meal time.
• Driving across Utah and watching the scenery change in new and unexpected ways.
• Anticipating at least one more day at Zion before moving on to the Grand Canyon.

Things We've Seen

• A bald eagle playing in wind currents in the wake of Hurricane Ike.
• The flooded banks of the Missouri River, which was another by-product of Ike.
• Our good and very missed friends, the Pecks, who now live in St. Louis.
• Fields of sunflowers, corn, and a bunch of other stuff we can't identify.
• A wind farm complete with dozens of giant wind turbines.
• A coyote wandering down a river bank. He decided he was too shy for a photo opportunity.
• Antelope playing on the range.



• The oh-so-majestic and beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains.
• Goblins. We spent our first full day in Utah hiking around the Valley of the Goblins.
• A whole bunch of bunnies who are intent on taking over our campsite. Keith said one of them made a run for the tent opening.
• Arches. We spent our second full day in Utah hiking around Arches National Park.
• Lots of Land Rovers. The 2008 National Land Rover Rally is taking place this week in Moab.

Let the Photos Begin

On Saturday morning, Keith and I left for vacation.

First stop was Atlanta, where Monty will be spending some quality time with Keith's parents. Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner with Keith's parents, brother, and nephews.

Yesterday, we drove to St. Louis, where we had the great joy of spending a few hours with our good friends Mark and Susan Peck, who moved from Dallas to St. Louis at the same time we moved from Dallas to Orlando. A side benefit of that was being able to also see the Arch, which I have never seen before. Even though I knew it was big, I never imagined it was quite that large.

Today we drove through Missouri to the westernmost parts of Kansas, where we plan to get a good night's sleep before journeying into Colorado tomorrow.

Stay tuned for more fun-ness.

Happy Birthday, Keith!

Today is Keith's birthday. His fortieth birthday.

One of his favorite things in life is breakfast. So I got up and made bacon and eggs and toast and coffee for him. Then, I sent him off to work with a full Thermos of hot coffee.

Since he loves to eat at home, I cooked some of his favorite non-breakfast things for dinner: pot roast, asparagus, loaded mashed potatoes, cheese bread, and butterscotch brownies.

Now he's well-fed and doing his favorite evening activity, which is watching news, with Monty curled up next to him on the couch.

Happy Birthday, Keith. I hope it was a good one.

My First Trip to Indy

Last Wednesday, I surprised my friend and sporadic blogger, Lynette, by flying into Indianapolis. Don't worry too much--her husband was in on the whole thing. Her 40th birthday was last weekend, and I followed a long stream of announced and unannounced friends and family who went to Indy to celebrate her birthday with her. We spent three days hanging out and just being friends. It was great.

In one of those crazy randomnesses that the universe sometimes throws at us, Lynette lives in the same neighborhood with a friend (boss) that we worked with in Atlanta only about thirteen years ago. So on Friday evening, Lynette invited Lou and his family over for dinner to surprise him.

I do see Lynette several times a year, so even though I was a surprise, it was nothing like the shock Lou experienced. I don't think I've seen him in a decade or more. Far too long, I assure you.

When I got home, Keith wanted to see my photos. Well, we were not too surprised to see that I had pictures of everyone's dogs. And Lou's motorcycle (yep, that's Lou on his toy). And not much else. It says a lot about me, doesn't it?