So we spent nearly a month in San Diego, after spending nearly a month driving all over the US. It was a great vacation, a nice reminder that the US is full of variety, but also that the world is quite small, as we made the drive home from the west coast in less than 48 hours.
I had a bit of a weird moment when I realized that although I was jealous of aspects of life on the coast, I really didn't want to live there. I listened to a podcast on the subject of the tradeoffs of city life, and one of the elements they listed, as sort of one leg of the stool that one tries to balance when choosing where to live, was quality of life. And although their definition of quality of life was surprisingly different from ours, it was still a nice reminder that Arkansas, for the most part, works for us. It may be that we aren't too picky, but having lived in many urban centers around the world there's no question in my mind that city life just isn't my thing. It's fun for a while, but that's it.
I'm hoping to put together a photo album that hits the highlights of our trip. It was so extensive and so long that I'm not sure where to begin. But it would be silly for all the photos I took (2500 if Lightroom is to be believed) to never see the light of day.
So now it's back to the real world - work I've been delaying, including working up the syllabus for the class I'm teaching in the fall. I can't decide yet if I'm recharged, or if I need a really long vacation from my really long vacation.