I was away on vacation, and now I'm home! I don't always go silent online because I'm away from home. More often I go dark because I have nothing to share. Or I am feeling Big Overwhelm. Even a simple case of Whelm can result in several days of downtime.

This time I was On Vacation. Our first real vacation trip Since Pandemic, in fact. Last summer we did a long weekend getaway to Mammoth Cave, but this one was a full week-plus road trip to visit friends in Atlanta, with a side trip to Savannah, Georgia, a place new to both Spouseman and me.

Fun side note: A trip to visit these friends in Atlanta was our last trip Before Pandemic. Parallels kept cropping up the whole trip. We even had first-day lunch and last-day supper at the same restaurants as on our previous visit.

Back in 2020, I remember mentioning to my boss that I expected things would get MUCH worse before they got better, and both Spouseman and I got news of our work lockdowns while we were gone. Here in 2023, my last work convo with the boss was about the new timeclock and gardening, and our only communications while away involved texts with our house/catsitter about pralines, plant-watering, & Pippin's adventures.

Yes, someone stays at our house while we're gone on vacation these days. Pippin does fine for up to 12 hours alone, but Maine Coons do NOT do solitude well. He needs someone with him for overnights.

Things I noticed on vacation (a random selection)

1. I still enjoy highway trips! Turns out metro expressway are what I loathe, detest, fear and despise, not true highway travel. My problem is that most interstate highways east of the Mississippi never stop being metro expressways for more than a few miles between cities.
   But! I am still a HAPPY rider when the road has 2 lanes either direction, lots of bucolic scenery, rest stops every 2 to 4 hours, and occasional truck stops between. Country travel, yes. City travel, nope.
2. My road trip preference is to eat nothing, or nosh on packaged snacks while driving. This trip I was reminded that's a minority view. Faced with McD's Wendy's Burger King, or the like, my best/only options are small fries, or a kids meal.
3. Atlanta's metropolitan area holds only 2/3 of Chicagoland's population but has even worse traffic. The routes reminded me of travel in Seattle's suburbs--there was an awful lot of "you can't get from A to B, you have to go down to C and back up. (because hills)
4. Other people truly don't understand how much I love cemeteries, or how ADHD collides with scheduled events. We passed a really awesome cemetery on a trolley tour, and I gushed about it. ...but my statement, "No, I don't want to go back, I won't have time to properly enjoy it," was met with utter bewilderment. Surely two hours would be plenty, it was a small place, less than a city block. Taxi there & back, I might get as much as 2.5 hours and still have time to clean up before supper cruise.
   Except 2 hours wasn't HALF as much time I as I would want to inspect gravestones & memorials in a 250 year old cemetery, plus I would've been worried by the looming 6 PM cruise check-in the whole time, and that would've sucked all the fun out of it.
   So...
5. I have to go back to Savannah again someday. Maybe a writing retreat or something. I got some good writing done while we were there, while enjoying low-stress free time before the cruise. It was awesome.

On Vacation: the pictures

(because what road trip update would be complete without too many photos?) Things seen on our travels, bookended by the cat. Presented without explanation, because where would the fun be in that? Besides, I cannot explain the reason our hotel room had a doorknob on the wall, nor the existence of ketchup-flavored sprinkles in general.

And that's all the all there is for now.

Except, of course, for all the end-of-post stuff.

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