Comparing Travel Notes

Professor J,

I keep waiting for you to start writing "ship's log" and "stardate" on these posts at any time. Though Captain Kirk never had Belgian dark chocolate and blueberry crepes to rave about. :)

Your description of your eventful Independence day with MFP reminds me of the problem I have with the holiday: it's in July. Though this summer is certainly less hot and humid than any I remember in the last 20 years.

The day my daughter and I visited the National Archives we walked right in and I lingered at the Declaration of Independence chatting with a security guard about the many ways it is protected (at the first sign of trouble it descends into an earthquake, bomb, water proof vault). And of course the case it is contained in is nearly indestructible itself. Unfortunately the ideas contained are not so easily defended.  I took my time at the Constitution as well. A few years ago when my son toured Washington the line was so long the guide just skipped the Archives altogether.

Big parades are best on television. The only parades worth watching in real life are small town ones, with local bands, fire trucks, the guys from the VFW, and homecoming queens in convertibles. They last about half an hour and then you get to go home. It is amusing however that no matter how big or important the parade is they're  not all that different. Of course, that made me wonder about the history of parades. Not surprisingly of course they seem to have started with military leaders marching around showing off their power or parading victims of conquest through the streets back home. I have two distinct pictures in my mind when I think "parade." One is a Christmas one we happened on one Saturday in a tiny town in North Georgia. It included dump trucks with Christmas lights (exotic, I tell you). The other is the scene in Cleopatra when Elizabeth Taylor, atop what must be the largest "float' ever is hauled through the streets of Rome with her son. Burly slaves pull the ropes. They'd really envy the guys holding the strings for the inflatable cartoon characters.

I'm resisting the urge to go down the Roman Road you set up so nicely by reminding myself this is light summer reading. I have Gibbon within arm's reach but you'll notice I'm practicing real restraint. Still that last bit...no. No, I tell you. LOL

MFP brought out her charming conversational self when she felt like it? Ah, yes. Teenagers. Every once in a while they like to show us that it isn't that they aren't capable of doing what we'd like, they simply don't like doing it on command. She's giving you a little glimpse of where she's headed. One day out of the blue you'll notice that she's that person more often than not and you'll wonder when that happened. :)

I won't even pretend like I'm not envious about viewing Fourth of July Fireworks from under the Washington Monument!

How is it that we don't have a "travel" label?