My friends, I give you...

a trip update.

(Sorry I didn't call back yet Inyad, just got your message today. Yup, I'm home fine.)

H i g h l i g h t s :

Family in Utah - Alex and Andy are both very talkative.. Kathy on bedrest.. twins are quiet and big bump in Mommy's belly.. Mark fine also.. yummy fajitas for din-din. Time there so brief though.

Iowa - and Madison County, yes, as in "The Bridges of.." Ok, I liked Iowa and raved about it for hours to Amy. Poor Amy, eh.. not so enchanted as I think she was sick of driving (I..uh..had forgotten my license. Whoops.) Also, she was pretty sick of the heat and dare I say rather perturbed at me for making her walk to this historic mansion in the heat which we then toured, sans a/c. :(

I liked Iowa because there were small quaint cute family farms to look at and appreciate, blue skies, soft fluffy light green grass, puffy white clouds, smiling farm animals, in short - everything had a pretty "let's go to the country!" feel. Also, I walked accross one of the 5 left of the 19 famous bridges of Madison County and felt like quite the romantic.

Chicago - a very clean, happening place with lots of stuff to do and cool public places to hang out in. We also saw a great play called Book of Days that was very well done.

Now, the rest of the trip - it was great to be with Amy, although we had a few mishaps. We got stuck on 80 in Nevada because of a Great Fire which closed down the freeway! We were stranded, refugees, about to sleep in a conference room of a nearby hospitable hotel when we heard the freeway had started moving again. So back we go and arrive in Elko, NV, where we finally secured lodging in the wee morn and crashed and were thusly very late to Utah.

Wyoming was also veeeeeeery dull. Let me sum it up for ya - dead grass on plateaus and strange fences and NOTHING ELSE. Cowboy land? Um, yeah, right. Nary a horsey or cowboy and barely a cattle did I see. There was just nothin', not even a cloud. I think I got excited when I saw a house. And we still don't know what the strange fences meant. They seem to have been made to keep a bunch of nothing away from the rest of nothing, didn't connect to anything, in short, made no sense. Lisa, please investigate this mystery for us and report back on your findings.

Oh, in Iowa, they grow two things: corn and soybeans. California really does have the variety.

I think I forgot Nebraska - flat and green, big farms.

Illinois was more rustic.

I hope Amy is doing well. She's probably driving as I type.

Good night.

By the way, thanks Amy for your gifts I got in the mail! :) Look forward to your first "My New Home" blog.

So many life changes happening for everyone right now, or soon to happen. Wish all the best.