Columbus
No offense intended to any denizens of Columbus or the Ohio Valley, but I wouldn't have figured on vacationing, much less road-tripping, here a couple of years ago. That was before one of my closest friends took a job teaching at a private liberal arts college here -- and Amanda's one of my distance-has-no-meaning friends. I flew up last October, but when it was time to bring the whole family up this week, airline tickets became as financially unattainable as a personal Lear.
Will survived the seven-hour-plus-breaks road trip in reasonably fine form --blessedly, he slept through almost four hours of it. He and I have spent a fair amount of time in her front yard engaging in Nerf baseball real basketball. (Note to fellow parents of 2-year-olds: If you discover that the basket is too low, and thus dunkable, DO NOT hold your 2-year-old up so that he may dunk the basketball himself. You will be doing it the rest of the evening and your triceps will not forgive you.)
Shannon's going to take Will and meet in person an online friend tomorrow -- er, today (he said, looking at the clock with alarm) -- while Amanda has shanghaied me into helping her move her office from one campus building to another. And it's very late.