We made it back from Chicago last night in less than 7 hours. That includes the last two hours or so being through freezing rain (of course I was driving at that point). It was still much faster than the drive down! Only that last bit was bad at all. In contrast, here is a shot of when we stopped in Madison en route on Tuesday:


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Wow, what a horrible drive ( Read more... )

In anticipation of the RNC, the hubby and I headed up to the Upper Peninsula (the U.P. or "Yoop") of Michigan to visit my godparents at their "lake home."
( Lots of photos if you like that kind of thing )

It drives me up the wall when people respond to news of travel destinations, past or future, with, "You are so lucky!" Yes, travel can be expensive, but luck didn't save my money, book my plane tickets, or make my hotel reservations. Nor did luck do all the research into best times of year, what to pack, or where to go. But I did ( Read more... )

Villa Casale was a really impressive site. The second century Roman estate was covered in boiling mud after a volcanic eruption and not discovered until the early 19th century; excavations were only begun in the mid-20th century. Because a lot of excavation and restoration work is still being done, only a section of the ruins is open at a time, and ( Read more... )

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A really cool side trip we took between cities was going to Mount Etna, Sicily's large, active volcano. It last erupted in 2002 and a slow-moving lava flow came within 50 meters of a town below. Like Hawaii, though, the volcanic soil is rich and lush vegetation covers the slopes that haven't recently had activity. We took the bus up to the visitors ( Read more... )

This is the view from our hotel's rooftop patio in Taormina, Sicily. Taormina (which is a shortened version of "city on a mountain that looks like the head of a bull" because of the two horn-shaped capes that create its bay) is in the northeastern part of the island. The mountain in the background is Mt. Etna, still an active volcano. I couldn't ( Read more... )

Mom and I leave for our trip to Sicily on Saturday evening. I was having trouble falling asleep last night, so I got back up and worked on my packing list for a little while. I have a good idea of what I'm taking, but I like to write it down so I can see how much it will really be, and to prevent me from forgetting to actually put things in the bag ( Read more... )

We had a really nice long weekend. Being out-of-town just helps detach from work since you're too far away to do anything, anyway. We left Friday afternoon when Anderson picked me up from work, just before 3pm. I had requested Friday off from work in January. Fat lot of good it did me. We had asked for the weekend off because it was our first ( Read more... )