Okay, I’m back from my giant vacation, also known as 3 days off.  Unfortunately for you, there were about a trillion small things going through my head on the trip.  I’ll try to keep the random thoughts to a minimum.  The one-sentence summary is that mountains and corn fields still make me happy, I still stink at taking pictures, and my brother is (still) a happily married man.

A large part of the time was taken up with driving to and from the mountains, and the drive traced the last four years of my life pretty well.  I-40 W takes you from the Chapel Hill area (2007-2008) to Winston-Salem (2006-2007) to Asheville (small trips from around 1987 to this week) in a few short hours.  It basically served as a modern version of memory lane.  And as the drive wound to a close and I went through the tunnel into Norfolk, I realized that it was kind of freeing to see those places and feel totally content with where I am now.  It’s easy to question if you took the right steps in life, and it’s nice to see that the choices that seemed crazy a few years ago weren’t so insane after all.

And speaking of the big picture, it was wonderful to see my brother and his wife recite their vows to one another.  I thought that since they were already legally married, that part of the ceremony might not seem as meaningful as it would the first time around.  I was totally wrong.  Watching them promise to love each other and be faithful, etc. for the rest of their lives was still a very big deal.