Hangin' With the Monicos

My mother hosted the latest installment of the semiannual traveling show known as the Monico Family Reunion this past week. The time flew by too fast, but in four short days, Sam and Henry got to meet a healthy helping of distant relatives, most of them from the West Coast Monico Clan. (There just aren't enough of us East Coast Monicos, I guess.)

It's hard to get a good turnout to any reunion other than the rare gatherings held in our homeland of Minnesota. The last time one of those rolled around was 2002, but maybe we can pressure the Midwest Monicos to step up their game next time. Even so, we had about 20 Monicos at this reunion, and my mom was a great host, throwing open the doors to her new compound in the woods, where spaghetti was enjoyed by all.

Sadly, my grandpa was the only member of The Twelve to attend. He's one of only four of the original 12 still with us, though I can still remember the "old days," circa 1985 reunion, when we had a full dozen attending. I can't really remember their faces or even all their names, but I remember the feeling of being in the presence of the full family, despite being only 8 years old.

Even with fewer faces and fewer names, it is heartening to be in the presence of family. Here's hoping we'll have many more opportunities.

Here is a link to photos, including many from Sam's birthday: PHOTOS
Liz will write soon about the big 2nd birthday.

Sam Meets Combat Jesus

Our favorite roadside sight on the route from Platteville to Madison, care of the Knights of Columbus. Doesn't he look like he's about to attack evildoers? Sam's got his back.

Day 6: Meet at the Mint

Sam had his first breakfast at the Mint Cafe in Wausau this morning. This was a regular hangout for Keith, Kyle and me when we were all in Wausau. We'd go for a morning run and hit the Mint before heading to work. Now I'm in NYC and Kyle is in Calif., but Keith is still keeping the faith in Wausau. He and I got in a good run this morning before we joined up with Liz and Sam.

Last night, Liz was able to catch up with her friend Sarah Wang, who also lives in Wausau. We stopped by her house and then headed to the Applebees by hour hotel, with Sarah's kids. Sam hasn't been able to sit still for long at restaurants on this trip, so I took him back to the hotel early while Liz and Sarah chatted.

Wish we could have stayed longer and done more, but there's always next time.

Day 1: Somewhere on the Ohio Turnpike

It's day one of the Great Paulsen Midwest Road Trip 2010. Not a lot to say, other than New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. We set up camp in a Super 8 just south of Sandusky, about halfway to Platteville. Just under 500 miles left to go. Sam has been handling it well, but he clearly suffers from vertical activity deprivation. The kid has grown fond of running around, and you can't do that well in a car.

As for the car, it's a Toyota Prius, a two-week rental that cost us less than the price of two plane tickets, not to mention all the baggage we're taking. And with two weeks to burn, it's nice having our own four wheels.

And I still can't believe I have a full two weeks off. This is my longest stretch without working since college. Not sure how I'm gonna feel by the end. Hopefully, I'll keep the thoughts of work to a minimum.

Coming up: we're looking forward to seeing Grandma and Grandpa Putnam, Great-Grandma Putnam, Great-Aunt Sue, Great-Aunt Suzie, the Wangs of Wausau, the Uhligs of Wausau, the Caseys of Reedsburg and some of the Twin Cities crew, including Joy, Jason and Rodney. Good times ahead.

Every Home I've Known Is Gone

My parents, for various reasons, never stayed put very long. We moved quite a bit, whether for jobs or for a greener pasture on the other side of the apartment complex. My mother, in particular, has been notorious for regular uprooting, to the point that it has become a common joke between us: Mom, it's been a whole year, guess I should expect to help you move soon.

And I'm a geography guy, obsessed with spacial awareness. Love my maps. Love getting directions. Love checking out the lay of the land in new neighborhoods. Love thinking about and describing how landmarks and streets and buildings are configured.

So when I think of my childhood, I often think about the only space that has been a constant, my grandparents' house in Windsor, Mass. They've had that house for 30 years, about as long as they've had a grandson. My itinerant youth found stability in the house on the hill and the cool cellar where grandpa had his tool bench and the evergreen forest shooting up on the back of the seven acres and the frog pond and the old barn where the ride-on lawn mower was stored and the dining room where we always hit our heads on the hanging light and the sweets grandma would bake in that kitchen oven and the time I almost impaled my uncle with the yard darts and the giant boulder mysteriously planted in the flower garden and grandpa's famous vegetable garden and compost pile and trying to get the rooftop antenna turned in the right direction to watch the weather on the TV in the den and the steep stairs that twisted up to the second floor bedrooms with their cozy views of winter snow and summer sunsets and occasional cars on North Street beyond the old stone wall.

Ah, for a guy who tries not to get too nostalgic about too many things, that house gives me fits of daydreaming.

Liz and I have considered every scenario that would have allowed us to keep the property in the family, knowing that grandma and grandpa eventually would have to move down the hill to a more manageable life in the Pittsfield area. But it just wasn't to be. At noon Monday, the house was sold to a new family, who surely will develop as many memories there as we have.

To say a final goodbye, Liz, Sam and I stopped by Sunday on our way to introducing the Monicos to their great-grandson. Our real goodbye to the house occurred in May, the last time we were there when it was still a living space. At that time, my uncle Jeff and aunt Laurie were visiting, too, and Sam was still growing in mommy's tummy. But on Sunday, the house was cleared out and locked up, and weeds already had begun to grow over the steps up to the back door. We walked around the exterior, took a few pictures and then headed back down the hill.

This is a lesson Sam will have to learn someday. All good things come to an end. That's just the way of the world, its melancholy accent. But the world is wide. And for every door that closes on a good experience, so many more doors are ready to be opened on new experiences, the raw ingredients for future memories. The ache of time is strong, but in this way, no good thing ever really is lost.

Holiday at the Monico House

My grandparents, after nearly 30 years living up the hill in Windsor, Mass., finally decided to move down into the valley, to a two-bedroom apartment in a senior complex in Lenox.

The official move isn't for another week, but for the Memorial Day holiday my mother's brother and sister were visiting, a rare occasion to get three of the four Monico siblings together. We drove up from New Haven and had lunch with them.

Maybe someday we'll be able to coordinate a visit with the fourth sibling, Pete. Until then, this photo will have to suffice: Me, Liz (with Chick), Mom, Grandma, Jeff, Grandpa and Laurie. Oh, and Mom's dog, Jetta.

Goodbye, Mr. Trek

In the back of my mind, I sorta knew this day would come. Figured I wouldn't last forever in the Northeast without confronting the awful realization that my bike had been stolen.

I travel barely a mile to and from the train station to get to work. The bike has been a convenient way to get there and back without troubling Liz for a ride or paying for a taxi. But the bike rack is out in the open, rather exposed. I thought my cable lock would be enough. Instead, I returned to New Haven one night last week and found the bike gone. The only trace left was the little velcro strip used to secure the cable together.

It was a great bike, a hand-me-down from Keith that I adopted as my own. A couple of years ago, I sunk maybe $200 bucks into fixing it up, new handlebar tape, spiffy new tires, clean gears. It looked sharp, and I felt proud to ride it.

Maybe a bit too proud. If I had bought a second bike, one that looked like trash, I could have rode that to the train station and locked it up with no fear of anyone ever ripping it off. But the sharp-looking Trek was a thief magnet, I guess, locked up next to all those other, beat-up bicycles. Some guy with boltcutters or equivalent firepower make quick work of my lock and left me scratching my head and cursing, forced to catch a miserable cab ride home.

I'm still debating what to do about my bike-less state. Invest in a snazzy new bike? Get a broken-down workhorse to get me by? Take up walking instead? To be continued...

READ MORE about the bike's history and what it meant to Keith on Keith's Wausau Daily Herald Blog.

Baby Returns to Wis. (by Popular Demand)

Let me get the bad news out of the way first. We broke three rules of travel on our vacation: Never fly into Newark, never fly into Newark on a late flight and never fly into Newark on a late flight when a snow storm is sweeping through the Midwest.

Our flight Sunday out of Madison got delayed several hours, to the point that there was no way we would have made our train connection. So we got a hotel in Madison and left early the next morning, without further problems.

Otherwise, our vacation last week and brief trip to Wisconsin was a big success, culminating in a wonderful baby shower thrown by the two Sarahs. Many thanks to them, and to everyone who braved the surprise snowstorm in southern Wisconsin on Saturday.

It was baby's second trip to Wisconsin (the first being Christmas), and we can only assume he enjoyed it. (We were sure to give him a taste of brats and cheese, but no beer just yet.) Click on the photo below for a photo gallery of the shower.

The Year That Was/Is

What a year!

And what an end to that what-a-year!

We snuck away from our "real lives" for a week last month to journey back to the Midwest for some (Liz) family time. A red-eye train ride to Washington, D.C. A two-day drive with Nathan and Kyle to Wisconsin. A day trip to see the Bittner clan in Prairie du Chien. An overnight trip to Oregon, Ill., to spend Christmas with the Putnam clan. And finally a Mexican restaurant outing with the Sarahs and their families.

And don't forget to ask Liz and Nathan about their impromptu performances in the Christmas Eve service's bell choir.

The train ride home, from Chicago to New Haven, made us glad to finally see the apartment again. We're still trying to work off the holiday pounds. Meanwhile, I passed into the new year on a midnight train to New Haven after a New Year's Eve shift at Fox News. Liz worked from home and then fell asleep on the couch.

A barrel of fun we are.

End note: We checked out the new movie "Doubt" yesterday. Absolutely wonderful! Kind of a literary thriller, packed with ambiguity, parallelism, motifs, well-drawn characters and foreboding. The English major in me rejoiced.

Pardon Us, We're Outtatowners

I may spend five days a week in Manhattan, but the workaday grind hardly allows much time to get to know the city. And since we live in New Haven, Conn., we figured that qualified us to call ourselves "outtatowners" for a weekend and make a special trip to Manhattan for the holiday festivities.

Hotels are twice as expensive Saturday nights as they are Sunday nights, so booking a room above Times Square on Sunday felt like a bargain. We had drinks with a friend of mine, braved the mob packed into Rockefeller Plaza and then grabbed dinner at an Italian restaurant on "Restaurant Row" in the theater district.

I would have preferred if there were a little bit of snow to enhance the holiday atmosphere, but no matter. We rounded out the trip Monday morning with a visit to the flagship Macy's store (where the Thanksgiving parade ends) and the Top of the Rock, an experience similar to riding to the top of the Empire State Building, except that you can see the Empire State Building from this view.

Dave and Liz at the Big E

West Springfield, Mass., is home to the Big E, the annual state fair of each of the New England states, a six-for-one deal that still isn't quite as grand as some of the state fairs of the Midwest but delivers on the promise of animals, rides, games, music, beer ...

And, of course, food.

We decided this time to fill up on a variety of fair confections until our stomachs couldn't hold any more and report back on the ups and downs of the cuisine. Our taste buds are hopping while our bellies are popping.

1. London-Broil Steak Sandwich: Our first stop was to the stand with the (fake) flames shooting out of the top of the booth. With that kind of decoration we figured it had to be good. But overall, it was mediocre, not much different from a Philly cheese steak, with some veggies and nacho cheese to top it off. Dave succeeded in spilling half the toppings on the picnic table. The steak itself was kinda dry and flavorless. Quite a disappointment.

2. Soft Tacos: We had much better luck with the tacos across the way. The tattooed man serving 'em up didn't look very Mexican, but he sure knew how to work the tongs, throwing a variety of tasty toppings over greasy, seasoned ground beef. One bite, and Liz had grease dripping all over her chin and wrist, always a good sign. Dave succeeded in spilling half the toppings on the picnic bench.

3. Clam Cake Fritters: We had high hopes for these fried snacks, packed into a cellophane bag and served up hot in the Rhode Island exposition hall. They weren't bad, but they didn't really offer much more than a carb boost. We couldn't really taste the clams over the chewy, fried dough. Still, with a little salt, it was a nice intermediate dish on our way to potato heaven.

4. Maine Baked Potato: The Maine expostion hall is know for its long line of people waiting for the state's loaded baked potato. Butter. Sour cream. Chives. Bacon Bits. Mmmm..... Or so we thought last year, even though we decided against waiting in the line. This year we had to try it ... and it was worth the wait. But when we say loaded, we mean LOADED. The full compliment of condiments rises several inches high, with a sour cream allotment that easily could total a cup and a half. We decided against the sour cream and stuck with the butter, chives and bacon bits, even scooping off some of the butter, which the woman had heaped on by the spoonful. Not necessarily worth the hype, but still a great tater.

5. Corn Dog: No fair excursion would be complete without a mustard-laden corn dog, or at least says Dave. The mustard is a no-no for Liz, who prefers ketchup. This is a running disagreement between the otherwise happily married couple — mustard or ketchup, ketchup or mustard. In this case, Dave took charge with the mustard, much to Liz's chagrin. Good corn dog, says Dave. Wait until next year, says Liz.

Bonus item — Strawberry Shortcake: This was Liz's choice. It was between a carmel apple or strawberry shortcake, and it's easier to share the shortcake. Piled high with whipped cream, the sugar-soaked strawberries melted nicely into the biscuit bottom. It was good eatin'!

Conclusion: So, the real reason we go to the Big E is the slide. The video below speaks for itself.

Motel Madness: Manhattan/Mohegan

OK, not quite a motel, in fact nothing like it, when I spent Friday night in the city because yet another hurricane had screwed with my schedule.

This time, Ike struck late Friday night, so I worked late overseeing our coverage and had to get back into the office by 7 a.m., which meant a nearly impossible turnaround if I had to ride the train home and back. So my boss offered a hotel, and I didn't waste any time arguing.

The place was called the Muse Hotel, about a block from work. The second I walked into the room, I felt guilty. First of all, guilty that my employer was putting me up in a 17th floor room with a fleeting glimpse of Times Square, two flat-screen TVs, a minibar (Heineken for $7.50), a whirlpool bath, a leather couch and cute little square bars of soap. And doubly guilty because I should have been sharing such a cool experience with Liz.

Maybe someday, when we have $400 to burn without the hope of work reimbursing me.

The other motel experience, which was closer to a true motel, thankfully was shared with Liz. On a whim Sunday we decided to run up to the Mohegan Sun casino for a little spontaneous fun. It's about a hour drive, and we got a cheapo hotel for $80 that offered a shuttle van to the casino.

It was our first trip to one of Connecticut's two Indian casinos, but not as eventful as it sounds. We stuffed our bellies at the casino buffet and I lost $90 at blackjack. I think I would have had better luck had I moved to the poker room, but Liz wasn't really enjoying the gambling scene so we just headed back to the hotel.

To quote that old Third Eye Blind song, I guess we lead a "semi-charmed kinda life, baby." Not really all that glamorous, but at least a little excitement on the weekends to get us through our work week.

Greetings from Salem, Mass.

We are on a much needed mini-vacation in Salem, Mass., home of the Salem Witch Trials. I have always wanted to visit here because it's, yes, family history.

Ann Putnam was part of the circle of girls whose accusations of witchcraft sparked the trials and the deaths of 20. She was 12 at the time when she and a group of other girls around her age were diagnosed as victims of witchcraft. They then began pointing fingers at those who they claimed were the witches. Years later, Ann apologized, acknowledging that she was swept up in the hysteria.

Ann was a cousin once removed from Gen. Israel Putnam, a general in the American Revolution who commanded the troops at Bunker Hill. We believe my father is a seventh generation decendant of Israel. (One of the many things on my list of things to do is to prove this with birth and death certificates and try to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.)

On Sunday, we toured the Salem Witch Museum, learning about the trials. We also strolled the pedestrian-friendly downtown and ate fresh seafood at a restaurant along Salem Harbor.

We also watched the Bears defeat the Colts in a surprise upset!!!! GO BEARS!!!!!!!

Today, we are headed to Danvers, formerly part of Salem, to visit the Putnam House, where Israel was born and where twelve generations of Putnams have lived. The house is now owned by the Danvers Historical Society. We also plan to tour Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables.

We hope to post photos later today.

Goodbye, Old Friend

Liz and I must bid a tearful goodbye to the red Honda Civic, which has given us so many great memories, from the road trip to Yellowstone to the time I side-swiped our garage on Second Avenue in Wausau. It carried me and much of my stuff to Poughkeepsie in October 2005. It carried our canoe everywhere we went canoeing. For a few weeks it carried me 45 minutes to the train station each day, back when we lived in Glastonbury and I had to commute to work from there to Manhattan. And it carried us to Bayfield many times, including, if I'm not mistaken, the weekend I proposed to Liz.

Purchased in October 2003 for about $5,000 from Sixth Street Motors in Wausau with just under 130,000 miles on it, we sold the car this morning at 195,000 miles for $1,800 to a nice older guy named Lee, who was buying it for his sister. He's picking it up this afternoon while we're gone, better for us lest we embarrass ourselves with an uncomfortable outpouring of emotion.

Is it odd to get misty over something as ordinary as a car? But we are Americans, dammit, and sentimental attachment to our vehicles is in our blood. I feel like a cowboy without a horse now that I am without my own car for the first time since college, though we still have Liz's car for the time being.

Completely unrelated final note: After our Cabin Weekend 2008, spent among the vast countryside of northern Minnesota and its lakes and farms, I found myself humming one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, "(Nothing But) Flowers," a kind of ironic fantasy of progress played in reverse, with urban real estate sacrificed for farmland and parkland. The song doesn't promote a "return to Eden" message so much as a contrary perspective on the "evolution" of modern society, that one day we might find ourselves nostalgic for skyscrapers and interstate highways and Honda Civics.

"There was a factory, now there are mountains and rivers.
We caught a rattlesnake, now we got something for dinner.
There was a shopping mall, now it's all covered with flowers.
If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower. ...

"Once there were parking lots, now it's a peaceful oasis.
This was a Pizza Hut, now it's all covered with daisies.
I miss the honky tonks, Diary Queens and 7-Elevens.
And as things fell apart nobody paid much attention."

Closing the Book

Liz may wind up writing a little something of her own to cap our vacation journal, but here's my stab at summarizing a few of the details we've missed.

First of all, we made it back safely to Newark, somehow caught our connections into the city and now are heading home on the Metro-North train to New Haven with an ETA of 4 a.m. Not too tired but getting there. Mostly looking forward to the end of travel, after a six-hour car drive, five-hour flight and now a few hours on trains.

As Liz mentioned in her last post, we visited USC on Thursday, the first time I had been back to the campus since my roommate Hanvey and I sealed the final box of our stuff in May 1998 and pointed his rickety minivan in the direction of the Northeast. The campus hadn't changed much in a decade, though I don't know if I'd notice if it had. I still remembered the key landmarks and had a few boring stories to tell Liz at each of our stops, but the place doesn't really have much emotional resonance anymore. Even so, I bought an SC baseball hat and am wearing it now. Go Trojans!


Some of our most pleasant moments on the trip were spent on beaches, starting with the beach at Carlsbad, where my Aunt Liz works. No alcohol allowed on this beach, she says, so we tried to act sober. Ha... just kidding.

And of course, we had a wild time on the beach in Santa Monica, first walking down the boardwalk and stopping by the Mexican restaurant at the end of the pier. Liz suggested ordering the big margaritas, and by big, I mean the biggest you've ever seen. They were also the best I've ever tasted, and they cost the most money I've ever spent on a single drink ($22 a piece!!!). After dark, we followed up dinner with a walk along the beach, running in and out of the surf.


We also had a good time visiting Ginger and Gerard, who had opened their home to me in college when I needed to get away from Los Angeles and school for a weekend. They're good people, and they took us to their local Fourth of July parade, which was more fun than you'd expect from a small-town parade like that. They live in Arcadia, Calif., in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. My cousin Louellen, who lives about a half hour away, stopped by to say hello and have dinner with us last night.

There's plenty more I could write about, and certainly plenty more photos I could attach — we took a few hundred and will eventually post them in a Picasa gallery — but I'll leave it at that for now, with one last detail. My grandparents are buried in a Mojave desert city called Victorville, not far from where they lived, in Phelan. I wasn't able to get to their funerals several years ago, so I wanted to stop by on this trip and visit their graves, even though the cemetery is about an hour away from Arcadia. We drove up after the parade Friday, and because of the holiday the cemetery office was closed. So we didn't have any help in finding the graves, but after strolling the rows for maybe 20 minutes I finally came across the memorial stone. I didn't know my dad's parents as well as I'd have liked, since they lived far away away for most of my life, but it meant a lot to finally be able to say goodbye in person.

Vacation Coming to an End

Here we are, at the Phoenix airport. Boarding is expected to begin any minute now. So sad to see the vacation dwindling, but so happy that we did everything we set out to do. Will go into the details after we land, sometime around midnight on the East Coast. Newark here we come.

California Dreaming

Egads! We haven't blogged since arriving in California. I guess that old laid-back SoCal spirit has seeped into our souls. Whoa, dude!

No surfing yet, though I am typing this from a hotel room with a view of the surf next to the Santa Monica pier — or the end of the world, as I affectionately like to call it. I went to college a half hour east on I-10 and even worked here in Santa Monica during my last semester in California, at the Barnes & Noble on the Third Street Promenade. Coming back here I realize how little I appreciated how good I had it. Or rather, how good I could have had it if I wasn't working a $6-an-hour job, catching a bus home at 11 p.m. and wasting all my spare time studying for classes.

Returning to stroll the boardwalk and the beach and sip giant margaritas with Liz is a much better approach to Los Angeles living.

But more on all that to come. I must first get in a mention of our trip to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego. My aunt and uncle and cousin and cousin-in-law were extremely gracious in putting us up for the night, taking us to what must be the best steakhouse in Southern California, showing us the local beach, showing us their pet rattlesnake (gasp! We decided not to tell about the rattlesnake we ate a day earlier.) and filling us in on the old Paulsen gossip. Now that we have picture-posting capabilities (go back and see the old blog entries updated) here's a picture with, from left, Aunt Liz, Victor, Liz, Uncle Richard and Estay. And yes, that's wine in Liz's hand.

And Then There Was That Rattlesnake

We didn't see one - we ate one. After a day of taking in the views of the Grand Canyon --perhaps the most spectacular sight I've ever seen -- we headed out of the park, looking for some grub. And nothing says grub like Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse, where our waitress sported a beer belly and every entree came with a bowl of beans. Without hesitation, Dave decided we needed to try the fried rattlesnake appetizer. And without hesitation, we ate it. It was good. It tasted like a chewy calamari.

We are now on our way to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego, to see Dave's Aunt Liz and Uncle Richard.

Wrong Camera

On the hunt for big adventure, we made no mistake in steering our rental vehicle north to the Grand Canyon, a four-hour drive that ended with our overwhelming awe at the sight that suddenly appeared out the passenger-side window.

A hasty parking job and a short walk to the rim, and there it was, so immense, so impossible to put in proper perspective. The best way to describe it is — and those who know me know that I don't drop Steven Spielberg references lightly — to recall that scene from "Jaws" when Roy Scheider catches his first glimpse of the great shark, which is much more than the harmless guppy they thought it would be. The giant shark slinks back into the sea, and Scheider turns to his unsuspecting fellow crew members and says, "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat." (I'd argue, the best moment in any of Spielberg's otherwise overrated movies.)

Well ... so we're looking at the Grand Canyon, and the epiphany comes: I think we're gonna need a bigger camera.


This pocket-sized point-and-shoot Canon, while a trusty piece of equipment, seemed horribly feeble to the task of capturing the majestic, panoramic landscape before us. Nevertheless, I snapped my photos and we wandered the South Rim and we enjoyed ourselves. Maybe some of those photos turned out adequately. Meanwhile, I'm plotting my return. Someday to slay the beast, with an air tank and a well aimed bullet ... or a Nikon D40 with high-powered zoom lens and polarizing filter.

Can't help but dream big.

Retirement Heaven/Hell

Sun City, Ariz., is the most unreal place on the planet. The city basically was single-handedly designed, created and built a few decades ago by a developer named Del Webb, who wrought on the Phoenix suburban landscape thousands of nearly identical condos, apartments and homes laid out in tidy rows with interiors custom designed for the 55 and older crowd, which is 80 percent of the people who live here.

We almost got lost coming in because everything looks the same. The president of the homeowners association let us in. He and his wife have been together since 1948, when they met in high school, and they've lived here nearly from the start, more than 30 years. This condo is owned by Liz's uncle through an inheritance arrangement that isn't worth going into here.

Uncle Jimmy has our eternal gratitude for letting us crash here a couple nights while we breathe in the dry, 107-degree Arizona air. The place is sparsely decorated but cozy enough. I'm sitting on a relaxing couch. Going easy on my rear end after our marathon plane ride, which almost didn't happen because of one of the airlines' pesky overbooking fiascoes.

But that's all behind us now, and the vacation lifestyle won't be hard to get used to. They even upgraded us to a Hyundai Santa Fe at the rental dealership — much larger than we need and much less efficient, but what the heck. The Southwest can turn us into gas-guzzlers for a week,

Well, gotta go. I think Liz has found a roadrunner and her chicks in the courtyard. Seriously. (So cool.)

Afternoon update: Upon further review, seems those birds aren't roadrunners, but rather Gambel's quail. Boy, were we fooled. But we haven't given up on the hunt for a real roadrunner. Beep-beep!