Chrys,
It's good to hear from you from time to time. Your post brought back some memories, but for me, home was only 32 miles away. Since I was always broke, I hitchhiked from Murfreesboro to Nashville and back again. I carried a cheap suitcase with a college logo on it so people would know I was a student. The suit case was usually full of dirty laundry going to Nashville and clean laundry going to Murfreesboro. But that was 50 years ago.

Since you are a coast to coast commuter, I can't help but wonder if you have ever made that trip down on the ground. We have driven to the west coast once and back twice, but now we are talking about taking a train trip to Portland, Oregon, down to Reno and back home. Actually, the train trip begins for us in Cincinnatti which is four or five hours drive from home.

I think I have lost track of the number of times I have flown to the west coast, but it is probably between 30 and 40. If I get a window seat, I still spend a lot of time glued to the window. I never get tired of it.

Anyway, I think Califoria to New England by car or train would be a great adventure.
Howard
PS - Never pack swords in your carry-on. ;-)


> It's that time of year again when I get to pack everything up and go back home. I live in New England and go to school in California, so this is not a trivial endeavor. And I've come to realize that there's nothing like packing up your entire life twice a year to make you realize just how little it all boils down to, materially. This year, the essentials (the stuff that I have to take with me and can't store at school) fit in a suitcase, my fencing bag (the size and shape of a hard golf bag), a duffel, and a computer bag. It's not much. And the real essentials -- swords and other fencing gear, laptop, fiction notebooks, CDs, cell phone -- just take up the fencing and computer bags; the rest of the space is mostly clothing.
>
> Of course there are intangibles that are just as essential as the stuff I have to physically carry to and from the airport. But it's still always something of a minor shock to me to look at my bags and think that this is basically my whole life packed up and ready to go.
>
>
> ~Chrysan"I hadn't posted in ages, so I thought I should write SOMETHING"themum~