Final Thoughts

Well, I have returned home, happy and vacated. I had a wonderful trip, and I believe that the most important part of this trip was the process. I enjoyed putting together my itinerary, meeting wonderful people along the way, slogging my way through New England traffic, and most of all seeing la Juanita bonita again.
As I was driving yesterday, I was very mindful of how many folks make the metaphor of life as a highway. You may have heard the song, "Life is a highway, and I want to ride it all night long." Also, the first term used to describe Christianity was "ho hodos" or "the Way."
In life, there are impediments that are natural, which on a highway we could represent as bad weather, an accident, potholes, or construction. In life there are also people who just don't get it, i.e. those drivers who don't know the rules of the road, don't move to the right lane when they are poking along and no one else is near them except for you, or just want to see how goshdarn fast their new car will go on the expressway. In life there are goals, just as on the road, you can choose your own destination. Sometimes the goals or destinations we choose are the ones we need to get to, othertimes, they are a detour on our route. Sometimes we make a wrong turn and head in the wrong direction. Sometimes we think we have it all figured out, and we find out we've been driving for the last half hour towards Lancaster, PA.
Anyways, it's a classic metaphor that has stood the test of time, and it seems quite appropo. However, as all metaphors go, it's important not to take them too seriously. I'm just glad that I'm back here in VA, healthy, alive, and richer for the experience.

A Room of One's Own

Coming out of NYC was as always frustrating. I made incredibly good time while I was rolling, but was hampered by three major impediments.
1) The A Train stopped at a stop is wasn't supposed to stop at for 15 minutes, no explanation given. Then, it was moved down the track into the tunnel and waited there for another 15 equally inexplicable minutes. Some of the passengers theorized that our driver may have been, "smoking up in there."
2) There was some random traffic near the Brooklyn Bridge on 278 because there was some overflowing drain which held me up for about 15-30 min.
3) It was raining cats and dogs the whole way.
Anyways, our friends Ryan and Rebecca were kind enough to meet Janna at Union station in DC when she arrived, so when I came to there house a half an hour later, we packed up and headed for our hotel, where we planned to meet R&R for dinner. Well, check-in time was 3:00, so we wandered out to a bookstore, where we made several random purchases, the most entertaining being travel Boggle, which when we got to our hotel and after appropriate cleansing and reunion activities, we played for the balance of the afternoon.
R&R came to meet us at about 7:30 for dinner, which we enjoyed at an Italian restaurant, owned and operated by Columbians. It seems to be quite common for Hispanics to stand in for the more central Mediterranean types in culinary establishments.
After dinner we proceeded through the driving rain to a party hosted by one of Ryan's co-workers. The punch contained rasberry vodka, so it kind of snuck up on me, but we headed home at about midnight via the Metro, and soon we were fast asleep.

Nueva York, el capital del mundo

I took a leisurely pace to get to NYC. I went over the Hope bridge near Bristol where I stayed. This was only the first of many impressive bridges to cross on my way down the coast of the eastern seaboard. I stopped in New Haven, CT at IKEA and bought some of the CD racks I've been wanting since last year.
However, when I finally got to Kennedy Airport, I was heavy of the bladder, and I couldn't find a space. I did however, find a quiet corner (sssh...don't tell the TSA) to take care of situation #1, and I asked some helpful gentlemen if there were any spaces left in the godforsaken parking lot. Having taken their advice, I parked remarkably close to the subway stop. However, since there is no allowance made for those who might park at an airport in order to use the local public transit, I had to pay $5 to both exit and re-enter the parking lot, (because these folks assume that I took the so-called "Sky Train" to get there).
Anyways, I took a marathon subway train ride from JFK Airport in Queens all the way to midtown Manhattan and the Museum of Natural History. The Museum itself is very thoughtfully arranged in the newer exhibits, such as the exhibit on the big bang and cosmological time, and the exhibit on the evolution of vertebrates on the top floor (In fact, there was no single hall in any floor devoted to invertebrates, although they do make up the vast majority of the biomass of the planet.) However, the older exhibits were rather haphazardly arranged, and did not really present a cohesive view of their subject, but a lighthearted dance through anthropology and zoology.
Anyways, as I was walking out I met Chris Parnell of SNL. I walked past him on the stairway. I sheepishly (like every idiot) told him I thought he was hilarious, and he was very polite. I think this beats last year's NYC sightings of Bill and Omorosa from The Apprentice. Although, unfortunately, it still means I'm an American idiot.
From this point, after a brief consultation with my wonderful host M'Lis on the cell phone, I promptly sent myself to Brooklyn via the subway. However, my triumphant return to Manhattan was celebrated with a vaguely Asian chicken sandwich in a cute dive in Soho. M'Lis and her siblings Meagan and Jon (all my neighbor Judy's cousins) and Jon's wife Nic, were very gracious and friendly. I had a great time with them, and we headed a little uptown for a movie, Millions, which although a delightful tale playing with the nature of materialism and spirituality in our modern world, could have used a small amount of editing. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested into this classic philosophical dance, however, I would warn anyone that it does not really deal with this subject in depth, but rather in breadth.
We all snuggled into M'Lis and Meagan's apartment in Brooklyn for the night, and I had a pleasant evening with Bridger, the third cat of the week.