About to Vanish

It's raining again. I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Bleah.

Okay, I am finishing my packing (which must be something like a small messenger bag) and gathering a whole bunch of print-outs which contain my various e-tickets and reservation confirmation numbers for plane tickets, hotels, and a car in South Dakota. If, heaven forfend, I have to do this again, I will seriously run the numbers way ahead of time, as I could have saved several hundred by driving out and back.

That, and flying is getting less fun all the time.

I will be gone from today thru next Monday. I will try to use hotel lobby computers to check in, but odds are decent that I won't really get a chance to see what's going on until next Tuesday.

I will see Jewel Cave, Mt. Rushmore, and Wall Drug. I will see my aunt Coralyn, whom I haven't seen for thirty years or so. She will meet my daughters, which she's never done. I will meet at least one cousin for the first time. (And that's a first cousin, the kind that some of you consider "close family". What can I say? When my dad moved east almost fifty years ago, many of his family just wrote him off as "lost". But maybe it's more than that. My brother lives twenty-five miles from me, and we hardly ever see each other.)

I'll miss my life while I'm gone. I'll be wearing my Red Sox hat (because sun visors are pretty much required out there), and I'll have my cell phone and recharger, so every time I'm near a town with coverage, I can check in. I'll have a couple of books ("World War Z" by Max Brooks and "Young Miles" by Lois McMaster Bujold) for the expected extended down-time.

For those of you who care (and, of course, think about it at the time), please come to this post and comment with a link to any of your LJ entries that you think I should read when I get back. Thanks in advance.

At least the forecast out there doesn't have it raining every freaking day. And the two days rain is forecast, it's a "twenty-percent chance".

Live! From Brookings!

I know I said I was vanishing, but the Fairfield Inn in Brookings, South Dakota, has a computer attached to teh intarwebs, so here I am.

I've had a day. tamidon was taking me to Logan when the "Check Engine" light flipped on, so we went back and got my car instead. Not an auspicious start.

Then Northwest got backed up by the incessant rain (not their fault), so my flight left late. But that's okay, because my connection was also running late.

I've almost finished "World War Z", and I emphatically don't read fast. But Max Brooks has written an excellent book which is also a quick read. I strongly recommend it.

The in-flight magazine had a crossword puzzle and a sudoku. I finished both, in pen, between taking my seat and the plane taking off. This impressed the guy next to me, who was reading I Chronicles 11 and taking notes.

Everyone in the Sioux Falls airport ("Foss Field") was very pleasant, dontcha know. You bet. Even the bozo at the Hertz desk who told me that he couldn't use my credit card because it has tamidon's name on it. And then managed to swipe it thru the machine anyway. And then put a hold (against me refilling the gas tank) on top of the rental fee on my debit card. Even with all that, he was so pleasant I didn't even consider punching him in the face.

Until it was too late, of course.

The speed limit on I-29 is 75mph.

There was a billboard for "The Pizza Ranch" which asked the simple question:

Jaeat yet?


South Dakota is not "flat", per se, but this is the eastern part of the state, which is just off the plains. So it's rolling prairie, but when your car is on top of a roll, you can see about 300 miles. Oh, and all of the trees stand alone, and only in the low parts of the rolls, where there's water. Further west, there will be no trees until we reach the Black Hills.

I'm taking notes for "Mustardseed" (which takes place in Kansas, but many images from here will work there).

That's enough for now.