There is no place like ..er... where do I live again?

Yeah, I've been away a bit, hence the complete lack of blogs since early July. This has been another trip of superlatives and I have been able to see and experience so much. Hopefully I'll be adding a couple of blogs a days until I catch up to the present time. So for right now, I'll just crunch some numbers from the trips I've taken since early July.

States visited on mid-west trip (8): Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
States visited in August (4): North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia [well just drove through]
Miles drive on mid-west trip: 4200+
Emails downloaded when I got home from mid-west: 1200 [after spam and worm filtering]
Miles hiked: ~100
Friends missed: all of them

I love the way your red dress matches your eyes.

This was my third annual New Orleans Red Dress run. I've decided that I want to visit this place at least once a year and so far have also hit Mardi Gras. I had a great weekend, though am still trying to figure out where all my money went. I think someone mugged me and stuffed $60 of Fat Tuesdays receipts into my pocket! I got to hang out with some good friends; AP, Ginger, Little Fin, Pic, Fill Me Up, etc, hit a couple of caches, a few national park stamps. and explore the city. The biggest dislike was the sheer number of people in the pub crawl. There were just too many people involved with probably more than 1500 in attendance. That is jsut a little too much as it gets so crowded that it is very difficult to get a drink. This year someone had an inflatable pool being driving on a trailer in which hashers would jump in on occasion to cool off, however after a while the water had been splashed out. Fortunately a pumper truck from the fire department just happened to be passing down and they actually stopped and filled up the pool!

Getting flipped off the mechanical bull.

"I'm in UR Bourbon Street drinkin' UR daquaris"

Crikey!!

Weddings rarely go off without a hitch.

Angie and I traveled to Wilmington NC to attend my friend Tara's (Porcelina) wedding. She and Dan (F'em Dano) had met whet group of use went to the DC RDR a few years ago. On the way up and back I hit a few geocaches as well as a few other stops along the way. when we got there Friday evening we got there we attended a hash that the locals had set up for us with a trail hared by someone I knew from one of the previous hash cruises. On Saturday morning Angie and I went to the maritime museum of the 'USS North Carolina'. I've been on other naval ships, however this was the first real battleship, so I had a grand time running around the various areas of the ship and felt like I was a kid again running around the aircraft carrier 'Yorktown' back in Charleston. The wedding in the afternoon was lovely with it be set on the beach followed by a reception. I was sad to see one of my friends permanently moving away, but I know she'll be very happy. After all the wedding guests had left most of us, including the newlyweds, went across the street to a hole-in-the-wall bar to relax for the rest of the evening and had a great time sharing stories.

On the way back out on Sunday I hit the battleship again so I could check out a few more places and then went on to Charleston. I stopped my my grandparents graves in Paxsville for a short while and then checked on my pond and other family property in St. George for a little while. My friend Jason graciously allowed us to crash at his house for the evening. I stopped by Edisto Beach to deal with some business regarding the beach property before finally heading for home.