smacky and bucky

This weekend flew by like a bird on cocaine. We woke up early Saturday morning and hit the road, traveling the 3 1/2 hours to Lynchburg. Two nice discoveries along the way: (1) The speed limit on route 29 is now 60 MPH after Charlottesville. (2) They finally completed the Madison Heights bypass. Madison Heights isn't a town. It's a collection of stores, spreading out on either side of the road. As a new store opens, they install a new stoplight. It's obscene. There must be 25-30 stoplights in a 3 mile span. Well, the bypass begins 5 miles before you reach that place, and does a huge arc all the say around (thus, it's called a "bypass"). Smooth, almost nobody on it, and a speed limit of 65 MPH. Glorious. It actually shaved at least 20 minutes off the trip each way.

Got to see all my family Saturday night, including grandparents, sister and her family, and a great aunt and uncle. Ate too much.

Sunday we had to return relatively early because my wife had a business party to attend, and I had to come along as arm candy. Oh, this was a floating party, in that it took place on the cruise ship Odyssey. It's one of those things you see but would never do on your own, so now we can scratch it off the list. She got to mingle with clients, and I got an open bar. Seeing Georgetown from the water with a Bass Ale in my hand was a pretty nice topper to the weekend.

You know how just before you get on the boat someone takes your picture, then tries to sell it to you when the cruise is over? Well, the invitation to this company's party included a voucher for the photo, so at the end we got a goofy picture of ourselves for free. I'm hoping Laura will display it in her office next to the one I purchased of myself when I went on the riverboat cruise when I was in New Orleans on a business trip. Exact same deal: Stand next to the life preserver with the ship's name on it and smile. Only since this was a business trip, I went on this cruise alone. It was couple, couple, couple, couple, couple, couple, me, couple, couple, couple, couple, couple, couple, couple, couple... When I saw the picture I just laughed. Designed to be a romantic memento of your cruise, the photo of me standing alone and smiling was too silly. Of course I bought it, autographed it, and gave it to Laura framed as a gift. It was utterly stupid. It had to be done. If you thought the idea of going to a movie alone sounded stragne, imagine a riverboat cruise. But they had good margaritas on the ship, and we visited a Civil War fort, so it wasn't without its interest for solo me.

Getting a little sidetracked here. My main wrap-up point is this: After 7 hours of driving over the weekend, and a lot of rich food, we came home last night and zonked out. I slept an hour later than usual this morning, which I never do. Not even on the weekends. Of course we have flex time, so I still got here hours before everyone else.