Iowa Bound!

We're leaving in just a few days for a road trip to Iowa, for the Odyssey of the Mind World Championships (creative thinking). This has been a dream of my older son's 5th grade team for the last four years. They have inched closer each year, and culminated this year with both regional and Texas tournament wins for their age division and problem. We're so thrilled and proud. The kids are a great group and sadly are separating next year to go to 3 different middle schools. Our extended families all planned to make the trip so we could celebrate their accomplishments together.

But, as always, life brings unexpected changes and surprises. This has been a challenging time for our team since the kids won the tournament and the right to go to Iowa. Our coach's husband, a young and healthy 45, suffered a devastating stroke. The first few days were touch-and-go, but he has shown remarkable improvement (although still half-paralyzed) and is in extended rehab. As a result, our coach can't go with the team, but her son will still be able to. We're a tight-knit group and the coach is one of my closest friends, so it has just been devastating emotionally. We have got the trip all re-arranged now, but changing travel plans and helping the family has required even more logistical work, time and energy for an effort that was already quite labor-intensive. This, coupled with all the end of school hoopla, has left our whole family simply exhausted. We can't wait to be on the road.

We're hoping to pick up a few more states in our letterboxing life goal of all 50 states--including Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and perhaps even Arkansas. When we first started letterboxing (five years ago), we looked for one in Kansas, but struck out. This is our chance to rectify that (so many more letterboxes than in 2004). We'll be in Ames if anyone has any great suggestions of letterboxes to try. We've got a circuitous route planned, one that takes us through Joplin, MO one way and through Oklahoma City the other. We haven't even decided which route we're taking which way; it's been so busy I haven't had time to do my normal meticulous route planning! We may just wing it.

The highlight of my son's team's performance is a mechanical pig named Princess. Princess is the star of the show, and she'll be traveling on the road with us. My son wants to blog her road trip, so look for a few photographs, a la Flat Stanley, to commemorate the trip.

Tree for Houston

Just a little quick note to say that I'll be pulling this box at the end of February to send it to Connecticut for the summer. It'll be back in the fall, but if you want to find it before it goes, you have six weeks.

Tree for Houston clues

Christmas Cookie Letterbox

Christmas Cookie Contest

Poor Sugarcane Suzie…she is a wash-out at the annual neighborhood Christmas Cookie-off. Every year, she diligently baked her offering, only to come in LAST place every time. She’s tried recipes for ginger snap, snickerdoodle, lebkuchen, brown butter spritz, spingerle, divinity, snowballs, Florentines, peanut butter cup, biscotti, ansac, pfeffernuesse and thumbprints—what she now calls the unlucky baker’s dozen.

This year, she was determined to do better—in fact her dream was to beat Perfect Polly, so she got a little help from a local establishment dedicated to the culinary arts. So determined was our Suzie, that she entered cookies in every category – all 19 of them! Luckily for Suzie (and everyone’s tastebuds), she had better luck this year, finishing in the following ways:

Cookie (Placement)

Pepparakor 10

Mexican Wedding 4

Gingerbread 4

Shortbread 2

Zimsterne 5

Snowball 1

Pinwheels 2

Checkerboards 12

Oatmeal 5

Linzer Cookies 1

Macaroon 2

Rum Raisin Balls 1

Meringue Kisses 6

Hermits 2

Lemon Bars 3

Tuiles 2

Chocolate Chip 6

Stained Glass 2

Blondies 6

She didn’t beat Perfect Polly in every category, but Suzie was greatly pleased with the results…and we hope you will be too.

Notes:

• This is a limited time box. Probably to be pulled mid-January.
• This is an urban box. As such, it requires you to be sneaky and aware of your surroundings. Your prize is under a large piece of concrete. I suggest that you return to your car to stamp in (you will probably want to park in the far west parking space). This is not a great one to do with a large group. If looking confident while retrieving the box is not something you’re comfortable with, I’d suggest selecting a different box to attempt.

Organizing Stamps

I need major help to organize my stamps. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I carve way more than I can plant in the wild. I use the stamps for postals, LTCs and making cards for friends and family. Above is a sampling of just a few of the stamps sitting on my dresser--most of these have been carved fairly recently. I think I have hundreds more stamps I've carved. I have a small space to work with, as our house isn't that big. Any thoughts? When I need to find something, I have to go through a huge jumble (actually several huge jumbles). I'd like to reduce that wasted time and be able to put my hands on something quickly and relatively easily. I freely admit that I am organizationally-challenged.

cold snap

Not been writing on my letterboxing blog as much as my non-letterboxing blog, mainly because we haven't been out letterboxing.

I'm carving a series of Santas that I'd wanted to get out by St. Nicholas' Day, but I'm pretty sure I won't make it as that's today. Since the creative block broke, I've been actively carving for LTCs, postals and traditional boxes. I even got two boxes planted, but we just haven't had much time for finding. I had a stack of clues for Austin, but somehow we didn't get to go out (mainly family obligations).

This morning is our first really cold morning (lets hope it zaps all the mosquitos). This is the conversation with my 7 year old:

"Mom, you said it's 37 degrees out and we need actual coats."
"That's right."
"I think that's too cold. We shouldn't have to go to school today."
"It's not snowing or icing. And did you know that kids in Michigan even have to go to school when it's below zero?"
"Below zero? Really? I'm never living in Michigan."

It's been a sudden drop in temperatures. On Wednesday, December 2nd, everyone wore shorts to school. Today, hats and mittens were required.

Cheap Gas! Let's Go Letterboxing?

The price of gas has hit $1.80 around here. I was writing this morning on my other blog about economic issues and how I feel like I need to cut back on expenses. But cheap gas prices are almost a bonus. You know it won't last, so you kind of want to take advantage of the lull.

I got used to being more mindful about how much we drove and we were less likely to strike out for a distant single letterbox (much as we love our road-tripping). But now, I feel that we can be a little more adventuresome and indulge our penchant for exploration. We're going to Austin next week to see family, but I thought we might have a letterboxing day on Saturday. We have absolutely NOTHING scheduled on Saturday (and after a crazy fall of sports and Ike, that feels amazing). So, I'm looking within a 90 mile radius for somewhere fun to go for a daytrip.

What about you? Are lower gas prices leading to more letterboxing adventures? Or are you still in entrenched mode? Or maybe you never cut back because you sacrificed in other ways and letterboxing was too important? Or maybe you have a magic gas card and never felt the impact of $4.00/gallon gas....

So, will you be On the Road Again?

On a related note

Can anyone who uses one of those magnifying lights to carve give me some tips? Looking through the magnifier makes me slightly dizzy. Does that go away? Will I get used to looking at my hand in ultra magnification?

I couldn't use the magnifier, but the light part was great. I'm hoping I get used to the magnifier.

I did it!

Did what? Well, carved a stamp. This probably seems like no big deal, but it is for me right now. I haven't carved a stamp in more than two months, since probably a few days before Ike hit. This is astonishing for me. In the 4 1/2 years since I started letterboxing, I've carved hundreds and hundreds of stamps. I haven't gone more than 2 weeks without carving, and then only on vacation when I flew and didn't have my tools with me. Normally, I'd carve almost every day.

But I just can't carve and I can't make LTCs or postals or logbooks or anything if I'm not feeling "right." It's just a weird thing probably analogous to writer's block. Instead of feeling creative, I've just felt blah. Really blah. Blah, blah, blah. Mother of Five and I have been joking about our post-Ike funks, and trying to talk ourselves out of them. But talking hasn't seem to worked.

For me, this was a delayed-reaction funk. Things were fine right after Ike. Everyone had recovered; our house was largely fine. There was a fair amount of damage to the trees, but it was clear we were going to be okay. But, no power, so we went to my sister's house for 10 days. And then, after we returned, being in the house with no power, no cable and no Internet just turned weird.

I thought I'd be able to get back in the swing when we got back home. Nope.
I thought I'd be okay after we got power back. Nope.
I thought I'd be okay after the kids went back to school. Nope.
I thought I'd be okay after our fall routine started. Nope, nope nope (2 kids playing 2 sports each, yikesola).
I thought I'd be okay after we got cable back. Nope.
I thought I'd be okay after Halloween and my oldest son's birthday. Nope.
I thought I'd be okay after I got the Texas tour bus back out and went letterboxing. Nope.
I thought I'd be okay after the election. Well, maybe....

Anyway, I know it got bad when my husband came home Saturday from the Electronics Part Outlet store (best spot in town for robot and mechanical parts) with a lighted magnifying glass thingee. "I thought you would want this," he said, but I think what he was thinking is "what have you done with my wife and can she please come back?" Monday, he came home, "Did you carve a stamp today?" I think he was deflated to hear that the answer was no.

But, somehow, this week, things are better. I don't know if it's restoring my garden or the election being over or the end of that crazy fall sports season, but I feel better. More myself. Physically and emotionally stronger. I'm sleeping better and worrying less. And I've started feeling creative again. There are three projects that I just didn't want to miss--the torn paper II LTC swap, a pink edition of a color swap, and an upcoming postal ring for a friend who recently got married. And, what had been a barren wasteland of a brain devoid of ideas has sprouted thoughts. I dreamt of my torn paper LTCs and I know exactly what I want to do.

The ee cummings quote on the image above is the stamp I carved for the torn paper cards (the pansy is a small part of my idea for the wedding shower postal ring). I still have a lot of work to do on those cards, but now I'm eager to get to it, rather than dreading it.

I'm trying to add things back in after my little letterboxing collapse. There are hundreds of emails awaiting me on AQ, so it's going to take me a while to get to them. If I have missed a deadline on a project, I am so sorry...and if you need to reach me you'd probably do better with this address: dewberrylb (at) gmail (dot) com rather than through AQ.

And finally, if you're one of the people who called me, or emailed me or sent me a card or an LTC, thank you so much. It made me feel warm and loved to be thought of in such a kind way. Letterboxers really are amazing, wonderful, kind people and I'm thrilled to be a part of such a group.

Life in Exile

We're sitting pretty here in Austin. My son's bronchitis is clearing up, and we have open grocery stores and a full set of amusements are at our disposal. We've been sort of an information clearing center for our friends who have no power or Internet access.

Mr. Dewberry went back today to check on our house (still without power, and no estimate as to a restoration date) and to do some more clean-up. We opted to leave the kids here in Austin for health and convenience reasons. I've been figuring out a few things to do; we may even go out and find a letterbox today. We certainly need to get out of the house--we're getting a little stir crazy.

It's day-to-day on the planning and it's hard to figure out exactly what to do. 85% of the schools in our district are still without power, so you can't open the schools until you can run the electrical systems and check to make sure they're safe. On top of that, gas supplies are still tight, so there's no gas for things like school buses. They'll announce on Friday the plans for next week.

Mr. Dewberry took some supplies to last him a few days. There are many restaurants and stores open in Houston now, although the lines can be long. My zip code still has 14,000 customers without power. Our neighborhood has a lot of beautiful old trees, and those trees are splintered and lying all over power lines. Power lines are severed and there are still lines lying on the ground in lots of areas. It seems like a huge job, and the company is estimating that half of its customers will have power by next Tuesday. Hope we're in that group.

We're fine

We left Houston today to come crash at my sister's in Austin for a while. Things are frankly a mess, but we feel very lucky. My front yard is raked and our fence is sort-of repaired (at least it's standing up, but will do while we're out of town). The fridge and freezer have been completely emptied and there will be no nasty-smelling suprises waiting for us when we get back home.

A tornado touched down within a block of us, and there are large trees and limbs down everywhere. All of our trees remained upright...although half of their leaves and small branches are all over our yard. But honestly, we came through Ike just fine. Our only issue is electricity, and there still isn't a good estimate of a restoration date. My oldest woke up with bronchitis, so we really felt like it would be best to get him out of that air and get him somewhere where his lungs could recover.

This morning a trailing band of Ike smacked us with 5 more inches of rain, and as a result our bayou came close to flooding, but didn't. Many of the streets were impassable, and two of the major freeways were closed. But, eventually that water drained and we could leave.

We're exhausted and smelly...I'm waiting on my turn in the shower. I'll try to post more later, but I just wanted people to know that we're okay. I talked to Mother of Five and Pastry Princess, so I can report that all the letterboxers I know are just fine.

Thank you all for your kind notes and thoughts. I have internet access, but it's going to take me a while to get caught up. Interestingly enough, I may have had to come to Austin to find out what's going on in my own city.

If you're looking for a way to help, can I recommend monetary donations to the Houston Food Bank? I know from first-hand experience what a great job those folks do with stretching their resources.

Quick update

At 9 pm, we still have power (although it's flickered a few times. I expect outage around midnight). We are sheltered in place, but we are safe from that horridly deadly storm surge. We are both far enough inland and at a high enough elevation (54 feet if you're wondering) that we won't see water.

The winds are forecasted as category one when they get to us. They're already starting to howl, and they should be twice as strong later on. That means we're in for a screaming meanie of a night, but the damage shouldn't be that bad. Everyone hope that our oak stays upright.

If I can, I'll post an update around noon tomorrow.

Ike is Yike!

To say that we're a little nervous about Ike is putting it mildly. I moved here in 1985, so I've never been through a direct hurricane. Mr. Dewberry was here for Alicia and they lost 4 trees on their property, but in general it wasn't too terrible.

We've moved all the projectiles out of the backyard. We can't really board up because we have a brick house with aluminum-framed windows. I have plenty of water, food and batteries. We're far enough inland that there won't be any storm surge, so we mainly have to worry about wind and downed trees. I fully expect our power to go out (we lose it fairly easily in a thunderstorm). The length of the power outage estimate post-storm will determine whether we stay here or leave for a while.

Just so you know, the nightmare scenario for Houston is a Freeport landfall. That is the scenario that will push the most water into Galveston Bay and involves the most potential for catastrophic flooding. My aunt and other relatives who live in the Southeast area of Houston (Pasadena and Clear Lake) have all evacuated, but emergency managers asked those in my area to stay put. Because storm surge is what is so deadly, I think most people heeded those warnings and respected the utter importance of getting those on the coast out.

Every mile further east of Galveston Ike hits helps Houston. Not that I wish his wrath on those further east of us, but there are just so many people in our metro area.

See you on the other side & I will try and post an update afterwards. Peace.

5 more states!

We've been lucky enough to get to travel quite a bit this year and as a result have expanded the number of states where we've found letterboxes. This year, we've added Washington, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Michigan, bringing our state total to 16. Thanks to our recent trip to Michigan (and being stranded by Edoard for an extra day), we were able to find 18 boxes in Michigan.

So, here's our life list:

Texas
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Michigan
Mississippi
Oklahoma
New Mexico
South Carolina
Tennessee
Washington

There are two states where it's kind of ridiculous that we haven't found boxes--Missouri and Arkansas. I have family in both, but when we were there for one reason or another we couldn't box. It's possible we may go home (my home, St. Louis) for Christmas, and if so, we'll be adding those two states.

Our total may not seem that huge to those of you on the Eastern shore, with the many states all close by. If we're driving west, it takes us nearly 800 miles to get out of Texas (100 miles going East and 350 miles going north). If you lived almost anywhere else in the country, with a range of 800 miles you could hit at least 10 states, but here it's all Texas. Maybe I should count the number of counties in Texas (there are 254) where we've found boxes.

So, dear blog readers....what's your state (and country) total for letterboxing finds? And perhaps what's your favorite letterboxing destination? Share your travel stories.

Oh, my feet!

My husband and I have been enjoying a few days alone in Michigan. We came up for a wedding, but afterwards, we traveled across the state to see Mrs. Doglvrs and Penguin Patrol, then back to the Detroit area to meet a different group of boxers. We really enjoyed everyone we met; I was just a bit sad because our wedding-related obligations prevented us from doing much boxing in the area.

Well, Edoard fixed all that...canceling our flight and giving us an extra day and a bit in Detroit. So today we set off to find some different boxes. All told, we found eight. But, when I got dressed this morning, I had put on my Birkenstock-like sandals (they're Campers, my new favorite brand), to wear on the plane--so that's the footwear I was sporting. At Kensington Metropark (which was great), we found terrific boxes, but went all over the park, walking all told about 6 miles. (Let's just say that I strongly believe that when you list hike lengths you should definitely mention if that's the round-trip or one-way length). By the end of it, my feet were aching...no matter how comfortable the sandals (and these are wonderful), they're not made for hiking.

Of course, we were starving when we finished, so we went off to dinner at a brewpub (the carrot at the end of the long hike). At one point, I looked down and my feet were 6 shades darker than the rest of my legs (they were that dusty)...good thing none of the other diners were looking at my feet!

Meeting friends, old and new

We've been out in the hinterland for most of this vacation, but we have had the chance to meet up with a few boxers. Many thanks to Alamocito for showing us the wonders of Aztec National Monument and many thanks to the great Santa Fe boxers (and their partners) for showing us the wonders of New Mexican food (although we already knew that).

I like meeting other boxers, but the circumstances have to work out. This vacation, we've had to balance what each and every one of us wanted to do, so sometimes letterboxing has been at the bottom of the pile.

In general, I've found that I much prefer meeting in a small group. I am a social person, but I don't enjoy huge crowds. This has come up in gatherings too. I think I prefer a gathering of no more than 50 people, so that I can have time to box, time to chat with folks I know, and time to meet new friends too. I actually retired all my personal travelers because I felt sort of overwhelmed with them at large gatherings. A slew of people would come up to me, list in hand, and as soon as they got the PT image, they were off. I don't blame them; someone else was waiting and they had more PTs and exchanges to get, but it didn't prompt any discussion or getting to know you conversation. I just wasn't enjoying that aspect of the hobby, so I cut it out. I may add some back in, goodness knows I have a backlog of stamps perfect for PTs.

Anyway, just a note for those of you waiting for clues to the Carver's Castle. I'm still on vacation, but I've had a chance to work out some of the puzzles for the event. Look for them to be posted soon.

Wandering

When I was a kid, after my dad got more established, my family would pack up our car and head out for three weeks every summer. Sample destinations included Maine, Shenandoah, the Blue Ridge, the Smokies, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota and Canada. We would camp mainly, spending a few nights in motels in between longer destinations. These trips provide the bedrock for my childhood memories.

My dad would halfway get us up at 4 am that first day, and carry my sleeping sister and me to the car, so we would go back to sleep. That way, he could get a good 5 hours in before anyone had to go to the bathroom or needed to eat.

I saw large swaths of the country this way, except for the Pacific coast and the Southwest. My husband was a geology brat and most of his childhood was spent overseas. His family would return to the US just to visit family primarily, so he missed out on the American Road Trip experience.

Anyway, we're taking two weeks this summer and having one of those Road Trips. We're staying mainly in motels, because we're not plopping in one spot for two long. And we're a little less focused on the destination, and more about experiences along the way. So far we've visited abandoned mines, driven on country roads through breath-taking vistas, rockhounded, eaten in local dives, hiked and taken more photos than you can believe (no limitations of rolls of film).

There are some similarities though to the trips of my childhood. My dad would forcibly take my book from me because I "needed to see this beautiful country." We take the electronics. Kids still fight in the backseat and ask how much longer (it's just that now I'm the parent, not the kid).

We've found some great letterboxes along the way too. I really commend those planters who have placed their boxes in thoughtful locations. As a visitor to your town or community, your box placements are like recommendations of where to go. We had a great hike yesterday along the Molas Trail near Silverton, CO. A box led us there, but the beauty and the pleasantness of the day led us to linger.

Traveling with Children

I always say that you can do anything while traveling with children, you just can't do everything! Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten my own motto. Consequently, we've overdone it a bit trying to see way too much. The result is some sulky behavior and some exaggerated yawning from the backseat. Tonight, to compensate, we tried to make an effort to get to the hotel earlier so that everyone could relax. We did manage to get here (Bluff, UT) by 5:30 pm, so everyone had a chance to play legos, read and swim. We wanted to get here by 4:00, but couldn't resist Canyon de Chelly (well worth the trip).

My motto's true for letterboxing as well. You can do any box, you just can't do every box. We've been picking and choosing boxes as we go, but today I totally blanked out on one of Sprite's in Ganado, AZ. We were at the spot, I had the clues in the car, and somehow I just had a moment of brainfreeze and forgot about the box. 10 miles down the road when I remembered, my husband offered to go back, but really turning back is hard to do on a car trip.

Anyway, we had a number of things planned for tomorrow, but.....my youngest threw up shortly after getting out of the pool. This may put a hitch in the activities. That's the other part of traveling with kids...unexpected emergencies. I travel with a full medicine chest which gets used more than you can believe. My youngest fell down at Pit Park in Deming NM (cool letterbox there) and scraped both knees; my oldest fell down a slippery slope at an abandoned mine and scraped both his knees (they match!). Today, they were both trying to look through the spotting scope at petroglyphs at the same time and bumped heads, leading #1 to cut his lip....and so on.

Oh well, some of the best vacations I can remember from being a kid are when disaster struck. Like the flash flood in Mesa Verde that caused a hillside of mud come down into our tent and screened-in fly (resulting in a hotel stay). Or, the time when it was so cold camping in Canada that we were just huddled around the campfire afraid to move. When the people from Saskatoon left because it was too cold (and they were in a camper too), that gave us permission to skip out too (another Holiday Inn). That said, we're heading for Mesa Verde tomorrow...I'd prefer no flash floods.

Blazing Blue Skies

We finally made it out of Texas. It was close-going there for a while, because in El Paso, we had to stop at the Wal-Mart. There's no Wal-mart near us and we never go (partially by choice) and the joint was hopping on a holiday. We split up for efficiency (our missions: duct tape and bandannas and toothpaste) and almost didn't find each other again. More time than you'd like later, we were finally on our way. The kids liked the fact that driving on I-10 through El Paso, you could see Mexico out the left window.

We headed to our first major destination of the day, Rockhound State Park. I warned the kids that it was going to be hot. "How hot?" they asked. It's 85 degrees now. My son scoffed, "It's way hotter than that in Houston." Now that is true, so on we went. Rockhound State Park is all about its name. There were some folks in RVs there, but mainly it's about hunting for rocks. For your $5 vehicle fee, you can hunt all you like and bring out 15 pounds of whatever you find. My little rockhounders were delighted. You follow the appropriately named Thunderegg trail until you get to a little rise, and then you're free to fan out over the hillside and hunt away. There were people fully decked with shovels, picks and hammers, but we just had our eyes and hands.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun. I would definitely suggest going in the cooler months if you have a choice, but honestly it wasn't that bad.

We found three letterboxes today--Deming by AZRoadie, Fly me to the Moon by AstroD and MarshMellow by Astro D. All of them were high quality boxes in lovely, worthwhile locations with great stamps. We had a lot of fun driving around New Mexico and seeing the sights. After yesterday's hard day in the car, it was great to have a more relaxed time with more time for side trips. Towns we visited included Mesilla, Hatch, Truth or Consequences, and San Antonio. We like getting off the Interstate and seeing more of the towns than rest stops and fast food joints.

All in all it was a great day. If you want a hint of one of the activities on the agenda, google the very large array.

Whaddya mean we're still in Texas?

So, driving on I-10 through Texas is one long endeavor. We live close to exit 765. To the east, the last Texas exit is 877, so getting out of Texas is an easy enough feat. But, to the west, there’s 765 long miles to go. We scratched out 627 of them today, but it’s hard to believe that you can drive 9 hours and still have two more to go to get out of Texas.

The beginning of today was just like it always is when you’re trying to get out of town.

The kids had spent the night at their grandparents’ house to free us up to get finished and ready to go. We got the car packed at about 1:30 am, at which point I couldn’t take any more and went to sleep. I set my alarm for 6am, so that I could finish some pre-trip letterboxing responsibilities. I got up, made coffee and promptly fell asleep on the couch waiting for it to brew. When the second alarm went off at 7:30, I knew I was in a spot of trouble. Long story short, I prepared 1 ½ swaps that I was trying to complete before I left. That means some folks will be waiting an awfully long time for their cards, but that was all I could manage before my husband threatened to leave without me.

Traffic was bad and it took us a while to get to the grandparents. Then, they made us come in for coffee and pancakes. I took one look at my older son and knew we were in for a long day—his exhaustion was writ all over his face. After the shortest polite stay we headed off. Of course I asked if everyone had been to the restroom. Of course they said yes. Of course, we’d been three exits on the highway before someone needed to go. We found a McDonald’s in Katy, TX, which turned out to be a good choice because by then it was 11am and the oldest was starving. So we loaded up with lunch and then, finally hit the road.

They actually did fairly well, and we made a minimum number of stops before we hit our destination of Van Horn, TX. It’s a town wedged between some hills (I can’t quite call them mountains) relatively picturesque and looking very different than green and flat Houston. I have some photos taken out of the car window (we really didn’t stop) like the one on the left of a West Texas wind farm.

When we arrived, the oldest needed to go straight to sleep. Even though he had a dinner of potato chips and beef jerky, that was the best possible remedy for all that ails him. We’ve got some actual activities planned for tomorrow, so that should be the real start of our vacation. I can’t wait.

I'm trying to blog this trip a little bit more, so hopefully I'll have more info as we go.

Annoying auto-commentators

I published a post and within 10 minutes, I had 6 inane auto-comments from people I've never heard of. I've never really had a problem with that before (I've had to delete the occasional comment, but nothing outrageous). I'm requiring sign-ins on the blog and we'll see how that does. I don't want to have to moderate comments, but I can't be spending too much time deleting links to porn sites. I'd rather be doing something fun.