Ever since starting grad school in North Carolina, I have always driven my car home to Arkansas for Christmas. It's about a 14 hour trip, which I usually make in one day. This time, I flew home. I thought that would make for a shorter overall travel time. I thought wrong.

I got up at about 5:15am, leaving the house by 5:35 to catch a 7am flight. I flew to Little Rock by way of Baltimore, arriving right on time at 12:15pm. I had an old family friend on the way to pick me up and drive me back to Russellville, about 75 miles away, all interstate.

Problem was, there had been a winter storm in Arkansas the night before, and the roads were really bad, with thick ice in places. It took my ride about 5 hours to get to Little Rock (instead of the typical 1 hour). He picked me up at about 4pm, and we didn't get home until 11. Having been up since 4:15 Central Time, I was completely wiped out, and I am currently very glad to be home!

I'm no longer dating Tiffany. She thinks I'm probably not the one for her. It's been a couple of weeks since then. I'm happy to share more, but I won't here, so feel free to email me backchannel. I just figured I ought to say something here, since I had posted here earlier that we were dating.

Living at Chicopee has been a dream. The six of us (including Darnell, who moved in a month or two ago) get along famously. We often hang out together in the evening, whether we have guests or not. And three nights a week, we do push-ups together.

At a house meeting a while back, I proposed that the Chicopites go on a retreat together. I figured we could go hiking or something. Lucas took that idea and ran with it, and, a couple of weekends ago (Dec 5-6), we went to his grandmother's old homestead in the mountains of western North Carolina. His parents live in nearby Mars Hill, and his Aunt and Uncle live right up the road.

So, Friday afternoon, five of us (excluding Darnell) piled into my Lincoln and hit the road. Spirits were high as we set out. We talked about life, love, and God. We played a car-friendly game of Clue on the way, which we customized for Chicopee: which of the roommates did it, in which room of the house, with which weapon? (Weapons included a knife, a bow and arrow, a bow staff, ninja throwing stars, a guitar, and a blowgun--all of which we actually have lying around at Chicopee.) When somebody got it, the game-master had to tell the story of what happened.

After arriving at the homestead, we snarfed some pizza, courtesy of Lucas's fabulously hospitable parents (who also left drinks, fruit, pies, muffins, etc, as well as bring us breakfast in the morning). We played hold 'em, but we didn't have any chips, so we tore up paper napkins and wrote "5" on some of them. After that, at around midnight, we bundled up, grabbed the flashlight, and set out for the family graveyard at the top of a hill overlooking the house. It was so quiet! I can't remember the last time I heard silence like that! And the stars--beautiful! Man, it is good to get away from civilization sometimes. We got back to the house, goofed off for a while, then plugged in "Home Alone" and crashed. (I forgot that the music in "Home Alone" is actually pretty good. I wasn't surprised to see that John Williams wrote it.)

Saturday, we woke up, ate breakfast, bundled up, and set out for the hills. Lucas showed us his mom's favorite prayer rock growing up, but we went far beyond that. Calling it a hill might be a bit of an understatement--all told, it was surely at least a half-hour's hike to the top, in places steep enough that footing was difficult. At one point, Justin and I raced to the top of a ridge--and boy, did we regret it! That mountain air was cold and sparse, and we were both feeling kind of sick by the time we arrived.

I had the idea to take turns yelling as loud as possible--another thing you can't really do in the city. Then we resumed hiking until we got to the summit. There were a lot of smallish downed trees there, and we had great fun hurling logs and rocks down the hill. We eventually descended, meeting a beagle on the way that very obviously had a litter of puppies at home. She accompanied us for a while. I bet she was glad to get away from those rude, rowdy pups for a little while.

We ate lunch at Lucas's aunt and uncle's place. His parents joined us. Afterwards, Uncle Randall took us to the barn next door to shoot a .22 at some targets. Lucas seems to be good at pretty much anything he does, so I wasn't altogether surprised when he nailed the target three times in a row. After that, it was time to leave so that people could be back in time for evening parties and choir practices.

( some pictures... )

Yesterday, I drove up to Washington & Lee University on my own initiative. I've applied to be a computer science professor there, so I was curious about the place. I also wanted to connect with Rick Peterson, the CTO of the university and an old friend of my advisor's.

W&L is in Lexington, VA, about 3 1/2 hours from Chicopee. I left the house at 6 am, before the crack of dawn. The drive up was pretty throughout, and stunningly beautiful in places. Lexington is in a valley between the Blue Ridge mountains and another Appalachian range. I was seriously in awe of the scenic beauty, both on the way there and the way back (for which I took a different route).

I arrived at W&L for a campus tour at 10. It didn't take long--the campus isn't very big. There are only about 1700 students there (all undergrads), not including ~500 law students. The campus is very pretty, and I think either the campus as a whole or else several buildings are listed in the national historic register. The campus was spared the torch during the civil war because the main building had a statue of George Washington on it. In fact, the Lee Chapel has the original copy of the first portrait of Washington on display. Robert E. Lee, who was the university's president for a few years after the Civil War, is buried there, in Lee Chapel, along with his family and his horse Traveler.

The culture is really awesome. People are really friendly. There's a rule that you look people in the eyes and greet them when you run into them on campus. Also, people really abide by a strong honor code. Lying, cheating, or stealing will get you expelled (for serious). Two great implications of this: students choose when they take their final exams (during the final week, that is), and people leave their laptops and stuff lying around wherever, because nobody will take it. Dr. Lambert, the head of the CS department, said that he accidentally left his bike parked in front of the library, with no chain or anything, and it was still there when he went looking for it a month later.

I met up with Rick at noon, and we had lunch at the cafeteria on campus, which was actually pretty good. He was so helpful to talk to. He also introduced me to several of the CS faculty. (Also, I met the technical support dude for the department, who has climbed 7 of the world's 9 tallest peaks, including Everest.) I'm hoping that getting to meet them (and actually spending a fair amount of time talking with Dr. Lambert) will help my chances there. I would really love to work there...

ETA: apparently they weren't impressed, because they did not invite me back for an interview. Ah well. Best of luck to 'em. I'm sure they'll do well.

Last weekend, I flew home to spend Thanksgiving with my family and my dear friends the Remer family. It was a great time, and a really refreshing break. Highlights include:

• Reading all of The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and most of Zanna's Gift by Orson Scott card (who I'm starting to think is an egomaniac) on the flight home Thursday morning. Mom let me borrow both of these, and they were both really good.
• Meeting up with the entire Remer clan at the airport (all 11 of 'em, including 6 kids, 2 in-laws, and a grandkidlet/cutie pie), and grabbing some lunch at a nearby McDonald's that I think wasn't entirely thrilled about serving us on Thanksgiving Day.
• Enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving meal with Mom, Dad, Krissie, and Richard, courtesy of Cracker Barrel's cooks and Mom's wallet.
• A good conversation with Scott (the oldest son) about life, God, girls, etc, before falling asleep Thursday.
• Going to Wal-Mart to get a football, then tossing it around at the Lock & Dam park with Peter and Scott. Chinese fire drill on the way home!
• Meeting up with my old friend Alan, who is leaving with his wife pretty soon to be missionaries to Turkey.
• A YUMMY meal of pot roast, mmmm! Thanks Mom!
• Going to church with everybody, and seeing a lot of old friends there. Whatta-burger (a Russellville tradition)--thanks Dad!
• Another yummy meal of stew--thanks again Mom!
• Meeting Warren and Daniel in Conway for lunch, then walking around the UCA campus.
• Wonderful, heart-felt conversations with wise people: Dad, Mom, Miss Gina.
• Reading most of State of Fear by Michael Crichton on the flight home. This book pretty much single-handedly convinced me of the fallacy of a global warming crisis. VERY interesting read, and a tight story, too.

As part of the ongoing Chicopee Party Series, we threw an All Saints Day party on All Saints Day--Saturday, November 1st. We were going to throw a Halloween party, and have plenty of scary surprises in store for everybody, but the church had a big Acts of Kindness event at Franklin St. and we didn't want to compete with that.

What happens at an All Saints Day party, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Bobbing for apples. Pumpkin carving. Homemade apple cider. A campfire outside. We didn't get around to doing the caramel apples, unfortunately. A good time was had by all, for sure.

The bobbing for apples was quite a scene. People were understandably reluctant to stick their heads in a tub of cold water or make a fool of themselves, so I kicked it off with a time of 9 seconds. Not bad, eh? :-) But, several people got one in like 3 seconds. Poor Nick didn't get one at all, so obviously we teased him mercilessly. :-)

Tiffany had just broken her foot the previous night. Poor girl. But she got around OK. Towards the end of the party, we started talking, and ended up having a really good conversation for at least a couple of hours. That was my favorite part of the evening, apples and pumpkins notwithstanding. And that might have had something to do with why we never got around to making caramel apples. :-)

In mid-October, I visited Orlando to attend the Internet Network Management Workshop (INM'08). I recently got a paper accepted there, so the trip was on my advisor's nickel. :-)

I arrived Saturday morning around 10, and got shuttled over to the rental car place to purchase some liberty. After checking in to my hotel, I went to a nice little outlet mall and found a really sharp-looking presentation outfit. The shirt has a beautiful sheen to it, and the pants look great too. All for like $40. I'm starting to understand the appeal of going shopping at a mall. You can find some really stylish clothes. (Man, I never thought I would say that!) I also bought some fudge while I was there, some to thank my advisor for sending me on the trip, and some to give to Tiffany. :-)

I then drove about an hour to the beach. I think it was Cocoa Beach. There were quite a few people there, but it wasn't as crowded as La Jolla Shores. The waves weren't all that great, because the slope was really shallow. I could probably go a couple hundred feet away from the shore line before I was in over my head. But, it was fun. I also got some reading done: Tomorrow's Professor by Richard Reis. That book has really helped me in my academic job search...

Sunday was the day of the workshop. There were only about 20 people there, so it was pretty intimate. It was small enough that people felt free to interrupt presentations with whatever questions they had, which was mostly OK. I got to meet and talk to some interesting, smart people, such as Chuck Kalmanek and Dave Maltz. I was the second-to-last presenter of the day. I think it went pretty well. I was pretty satisfied with my slides, and I think I gave a decent talk.

Afterwards, most of the workshop attendees, as well as people attending another workshop of the same conference, all hung out at the hotel and had hors d'ouvres snacks. Then, a small group, including the aforementioned Chuck and Dave, went out to Downtown Disney (which was right near the conference hotel) and had a beer. Conversation was interesting, mostly about politics. Everybody there (not just the famous figures) was fun to talk to. I particularly enjoyed listening to Ashley, an Australian grad student, because he had such an awesome accent. :-) (He also clearly shared my philosophy of Powerpoint presentations: figures, few words, animations galore...)

My overall impressions of Orlando were pretty negative. It's not an attractive city, and I am not a huge fan of cities anyway. It was inland, flat, not a lot of vegetation, cars, toll roads, etc. Besides, there were Disney World advertisements everywhere. They never let up! At one point there were about 8-10 billboards along the road, every 500 feet. They even had a Disney store in the conference hotel, and behind the hotel front desk there was a nice flat-panel TV showing non-stop Disney advertisements. Man...those marketeers!

"What do you want to do with your life?" It's a question I've managed to avoid so far. Instead of deciding after college, I punted for another 5 years and decided to get a Ph.D. instead.

Well, the question has surfaced again, more forcibly this time. I should, God willing, be done in May. And I can't punt again. :-)

With much soul-searching and hard thinking, I've mostly decided that I am going to try for a professorship somewhere. Specifically, at either a 4-year college or a master's institution. I don't want to work at a major or mid-major research institution, because I don't want to spend my time writing grants and sniffing around for funding. (The market for science funding is bad enough as it is, even before the recession.) And while I enjoy research (more and more all the time, actually), I think teaching is something I'm more passionate about.

Then again, I'm not dead set on that course. I know that I could be happy in a decent variety of environments. Cisco, for example, is not only a good company to work for, but they would allow me to stay in the Triangle (which I would enjoy). Who knows? Time will tell...but for now, I am pursuing a professorship.

In fact, there's one school in particular that I'm really excited about. Out of all the schools I've looked at, they're #1 on my (still-growing) list, for several reasons. I applied there a couple weeks ago. (I'd rather not name the place here, but feel free to email me backchannel.) And just today, they emailed me to set up an initial phone interview. It's nothing much to speak of yet--I'm sure I'm just one of dozens--but it is something. I'm excited! Send me your thoughts and prayers this Thursday. :-)

Alright. I'm gonna try to keep my LJ more up-to-date. Starting now.

Last weekend, five friends (Daniel, Darnell, Rachel, Faye, Tiffany) and I went to Boone. Last year, some of us went up there, stayed at Rachel's mom's house high in the mountains above Boone, and hiked Grandfather Mountain. It was such an amazing time, so we decided to do it again.

Four of the group carpooled out there, but Tiffany and I had work and couldn't leave when they did, so the two of us rode out to Boone together in her car, rocking out and talking the whole way. She was thinking she probably wouldn't go, because hiking isn't exactly a fun time when you've got a broken foot. But I twisted her arm, telling her that we would split off from the main group and have a blast in Asheville. :-)

We eventually hacked our way through the fog, missing one turn by about 10 miles, and made it to Rachel's mom's (Lisa's) house. Lisa is awesome. She's an amazing hostess, and had prepared two big pans of delicious pasta. We ate, played Uno and Jenga, the guys (& Tiffany) did pushups, and we all had a good time just staying up 'til 2am and talking together. Oh, and Lisa brought some fake mustaches for us to wear and take pictures of.

Saturday, I got up around 8:50, got a shower, and woke Tiffany up around 9:30. The other group slept in later, enjoying a leisurely breakfast of French toast (courtesy of Darnell), and they didn't leave until after noon. Tiffany and I left at 10, grabbing some breakfast in town before hitting up the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is gorgeous! That was so worthwhile! Tiffany let me drive her new Mazda 3 (woohoo!). We frequently pulled off the road to enjoy the beautiful scenery. It was a little late in the year to get the full color experience, but there were still some smatterings of bright yellow (Maple?) in places. We got to Mount Mitchell, where the road closed for repairs, but thankfully we didn't have to backtrack too far before hitting Highway 8, which took us to I-40 and then to Asheville. It really worked out well, for not having any map whatsoever. :-)

In Asheville, we arrived at Wall St around 2 and had lunch at the Laughing Seed Café, a creative vegetarian place. Surprised that I ate vegetarian? Well, I'll have you know that I actually enjoy vegetarian--of the Indian variety. :-) We then shopped at a very creative bead store (Krissie, you would have loved it!), walked around downtown (Tiffany with her boot), and perused a happenin' bookstore and coffee shop called Malaprop's, before needing to leave to meet up with the other group. My one regret is that we didn't have time to take a rikshaw ride through downtown.

We originally planned on meeting up with the other group at a Cuban restaurant in Boone, but a combination of fog/bad weather and a football game prompted them to head out early. I figured we wouldn't be able to meet them for dinner, but it actually worked out well, and we ended up in Winston-Salem at the same time, where we ate at Applebee's. After we got home, Tiffany and I watched Napoleon Dynamite at her place. Why? Because we felt like it, gosh! :-)

So, I'm dating this girl named Tiffany. :-) She goes to Grace, and I've known her for a while. She is pretty amazing, and I am liking her more and more all the time. We're growing closer all the time, although it's not yet time for a commitment, so I don't call her my girlfriend (yet). But we're both loving every step of the way so far. :-)

She is really cute, loves Jesus, loves music (with significant overlap w/ my tastes), is a lot of fun to be around, and has great character. I'm making a conscious effort to stem the gushing, here...suffice it to say that I like her a lot. :-)

So yeah...life is good. :-D

Poor girl broke her foot last Friday, though. She fell down some stairs leaving work. She's doing fine, but of course she has to wear a boot and use crutches. I've enjoyed carrying her up and down the stairs to her apartment. And yesterday, I pushed her around in a shopping cart so that she could shop for groceries. It was fun. :-)

All the Chicopee roommates are doing the hundred pushup challenge on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Week 1 was easy, and week 2 wasn't too bad. Week 3 was challenging. Week 4 was ridiculous. And week 5 was insane! We actually repeated week 4 once, and after getting through week 5, we decided to go back through week 4. Next we'll do week 5 again, then week 6 for the first time, and then hopefully we'll be able to crank out 100 pushups in a row. We're already noticing an improvement, not only in numbers but also in physique, so that's nice. And it's great to do something as a house regularly.

In general, living at Chicopee is a dream. Lucas and I have meaningful conversations several times a week. We play video games together, or sing and play guitar together, or sometimes even cook for each other. We have house meetings on Monday nights. We've yet to have a disagreement. The guys are so cool, and we just get along so well.

We also throw parties fairly often. It's pretty much the perfect party house. It even has a gas grill hooked up to the house gas line. And we'll be adding another roommate (Darnell) soon. A couple of the rooms (mine included) are big enough to easily fit two people in, so it won't be a squeeze.

Live long and live true, Chicopee!

Last weekend, several dozen young adults from GNet, Grace's young adult ministry, went on a retreat to Ocean Isle beach at the southern point of NC. Some highlights and photos:

Last Thursday, I got the wisdom teeth on my right side extracted. The bottom one broke the gumline but never came in all the way, leading to an infection. I figured it was about time to take care of that dude.

The dental insurance that the university offers is only worth it if your total annual dental expenditures fall within a narrow range, so I long ago decided not to get it. As a result, I had to pay for this out of pocket. :-/ As a result, I chose to just do local anasthetic (novocaine or lidocaine). It was over really fast! He (Dr. Jelic) shot my mouth full of the stuff, waited for about 10 minutes, and removed both teeth in about 3 minutes. I had to pack some gauze in the socket, and I will have to clean out the socket for a while, but I'm well on the road to recovery. I took prescription hydrocodone (in liquid form, interesting) for the first day, but it wasn't that bad. After the first day, I didn't even take ibuprofen. Cool! (Of course, my bank account is still hurting...)

Woohoo! My paper got accepted to the Internet Network Management Workshop. I'm going to Orlando (on my advisor's nickel)!! :-D

The workshop is Sunday, October 19th.

Last night, we convened at David and Geoff's apartment to surprise Fuller on his 21st birthday. I thought you all might enjoy seeing some photos. :-)

( photos inside... )

Yesterday, Jeremy H. met me at my place to help me move. We went to get a big moving truck, and proceeded to load the sucker up. I think the truck was 24'. You'd think we had lots of room--and admittedly we didn't stack things up high--but we managed to mostly fill it up. I do have a substantial amount of furniture... My future roommates (Justin, Lucas, Nick, and Simon) helped, too.

After arriving at Chicopee, we noticed that something had apparently broken on the ramp, and we couldn't deploy it. Thankfully, our neighbor (who lives in the apartment above the garage) was there, and he went straight to work on fixing it. What a nice guy!

I bought (not quite enough) pizza for everybody, to thank them for their help moving my stuff. And now I'm here, at 4508 Chicopee Trail, Durham!

The house is awesome. It's 5 bedrooms, hyooge living room area, nestled among extensive woods (which I can't wait to check out!), with a decent back yard and some adult-sized homemade swings. It's such an amazing house, and I'm so excited to be living with such a stellar group of guys. We are going to have such a good time here, I just know it!

They kicked Jay and I out of our office a few weeks ago to prepare converting it into a shared office space for a research group in the department. I had been there for 3 years, and Jay for longer. The temporary office they moved us into was on the third floor. I was pumped: I finally got a window office!

But today [might have the back-dated date wrong... -jst], we moved into our new office in the brand-spanking-new wing. It's sweet! The space is all configurable, with movable shelves attached to the walls, new furniture, a new whiteboard, and...a hip-to-ceiling WINDOW! I'm so excited... :-)

It's a pretty nice view, too. At the moment, they're erecting a big crane in preparation for constructing another building in the new science complex. By the looks of it, it will be a big building, too...

Last weekend, the junior high youth group went on a year-end retreat to Washington DC. Here are some highlights, in order:

• eating at Sonic on the way up there
• riding up with Kyle (a 14-year-old) in the passenger's seat, chillin, talkin, and listening to Pink Floyd and Coldplay
• the Holocaust Museum (heavy, but amazing)
• barely beating Kyle at a Rubik's cube competition (he's good!)
• the broken-firmament-style downpour on Saturday. Thankfully, we were underground when it opened up, so we just went to Union Station and had lunch at the food court.
• tentatively venturing out when the rain subsided, setting out for the Lincoln Memorial (which is at least a mile from the nearest metro stop), being caught out when the rain resumed, stopping at Starbuck's to ask for some trash bags, wearing trash bags, and the boys jumping to shake rain-logged limbs over the girls.
• the Lincoln Memorial (my favorite DC attraction)
• the incredible meal at Chili's. We were famished, and the company was great. Donald in particular told stories that had us pretty much constantly laughing.
• fearlessly leading the caravan to the zoo on Sunday, intrepid navigator Bernie (Ben's dad) at my side. (I think we only missed one turn.)
• going to the zoo, but being too worn out to see much. Instead, the dudes lounged around on a lawn near the entrance. We caught a second wind, I broke out my frisbee, and we played some hot-box.
• leading the way out of the zoo, and accidentally turning the wrong way down a one-way street. In my defense, I was following a fire-truck!
• riding home with Bernie, Ben, and Kyle; having a good conversation with Bernie; worshipping together; stopping at Subway and getting caught in another torrential downpour; transmission warnings (though we got home fine)

All in all, an awesome trip! I love these kids...

After returning from Miek's bachelor party road trip, I had nearly two weeks to relax, unwind, and enjoy some vacation time. I saw quite a few old friends, including Aaron, who is now a stay-at-home dad with his ~6 month old daughter. We watched Prince Caspian, and, surprisingly, ran into my sister and her boyfriend at the movie theater. They had just watched it.

I got to see two old friends from church who I don't think I've seen since high school. Warren is now married with a daughter, and living in Conway. Daniel B. is still going to the same church, and attending a nearby community college. It was very interesting to me that all three of us had similar stories since our teenage years: we stopped going to church, started drinking and partying, and then came back to Jesus. Interesting.

Dad told me to plan something fun to do together. He said he'd take off work on Friday. I pitched a few ideas to him, and we settled on floating a canoe down the Buffalo National River. I've done that a couple of times, growing up; this was his 2nd time.

The only other river I've floated has been the Upper Gauley in West Virginia. It was white-water rafting, not canoeing. They're pretty different. The Buffalo winds sedately through the Ozark mountains, between frequent hills and even 300 foot bluffs. The calm is punctuated by rapids every 10 minutes or so. By rapids, I mean the sort of rapids that occasionally have a tinge of white in them. All in all, it is a seriously gorgeous river. It was actually the first river to be given "National" status--as in, a national park.

We managed to get dumped out 3 times. The first time, we both leaned away from an overhanging branch in a bend. The left lip of the canoe dipped too low, water flooded into the canoe, and we were thrown out. The water was chilly, but not cold. We only had a single bungee cord, so our lunch cooler was not securely tied. So, Dad, being on the upriver side of the waterlogged canoe, held it in place, while I chased down our sandwiches, bananas, drinks, ice-packs, paddles, etc. Then, I dumped everything on the bank and helped Dad drain the canoe. By the 3rd time that happened, we were getting pretty good at it. :-)

We floated something like 12 miles of the river. We got out at "Kyle's Landing", and, thanks to a shuttle service (by the same people from whom we rented the canoe), Dad's car was there, waiting for us. We left the canoe and drove home, about 90 minutes away. We had a fantastic time--very bondarific. :-)

Last Wednesday afternoon, I flew to Little Rock to meet up with my old friend Mike (affectionately spelled "Miek"). Miek's stuff was mostly packed, but we hung out a few blocks away at Clay and Patria's house. Miek, something of a chef (and beer brewer), had marinated some pork in a scrumptious-smelling sweet cinnamon sauce. The plan was to take the meat to our favorite local pizza place, Damgoode Pies. They will actually cook custom meats into a pizza pie for you. But, they weren't feeling it that night--I guess they were busy--and they basically asked us to take our business elsewhere. So, we went to the supermarket, bought some ingredients, and made our own pizza pie. Heh, we made it in a casserole dish. It was fantastic! That meat was crazy good, too.

Thursday, after grabbing lunch and running a few errands with Miek, Miek, Clay, me, and an extra passenger hit the road for northwest Arkansas. We stopped by Russellville (my home town) on the way, grabbing a tasty burger. My mom met us there, so I got to say hi. I also grabbed a couple of long-sleeved shirts from her, which she happened to have in her trunk, ready for Goodwill. I had dumbly neglected to pack anything remotely warm, and we were going to Colorado. That's not the first packing mistake I've made. Ask me about packing shoes sometime... :-)

We got to NW Arkansas around 8, I think. We picked up Otto and Dan (Miek's bro), bringing the head count to 5. We stopped at Wal-mart on the way out of town to grab a tarp and some cables. That way, we could strap our luggage to the roof of Miek's parents' Expedition and use the back of the S.U.V. as a sleeping area. The tarp, unfortunately, was very annoying, flapping loudly in the wind. For the first hour or two, the navigator frequently opened the sunroof to check on everything.
( At this rate, this is going to be a long post... :-) (pics inside) )