Home from Holidays

Vacations are great -- you get out of town and relax a bit -- but you also get out of your rhythms and neglect your "stuff." So, I've been holidaying these past 9 days -- travelling north as far as Portland, Oregon where we visited my brother and my best friend from high school and his family. Saw some old friends and visited with my mother and her husband a long the way. We did the Tillamook Cheese Factory Tour and did some wine tasting. We had pizza and pasta, pancakes and my friend's own smoothies. We did some shopping -- including the world famous Powell's Bookstore.

But we've returned home after putting about 2000 miles on our new Ford Fusion. When we returned home to Santa Barbara we found that the big fire that was raging 9 days ago and started more than a month ago remains out of control. The skies are dark with smoke and the air is full of ash. At this point no threats to SB, but the fire is just up over the mountain ridge!!

I'm home now and hope to add some of my comments to the cyber conversation.

I likely will comment some on Barack Obama and other issues of note! But I'm back.