I'm in the middle of working up words and photos from last week's vacation. In the meantime, I'm in the mood for a bit of a word game, if anyone's interested in tossing in a bit of help.

The game du jour: Seven Words. The original idea is to select seven words, though I don't guarantee I'll go to (or stop at) seven. Each individual word will be used as the basis for a piece of writing, with an explanation at the end of how the story was derived from the word.

We're back from our weeklong sojourn to the East Coast. After the drive (must remember to tell everyone about the Land That Time Forgot in Tennessee that we found) our brains are pretty much the consistency of...well...oatmeal.

But I got to play in the snow. Most snow I've ever seen in my life. For a lifelong southerner, this makes many things worthwhile.

Photos and coherency soon.

I've been promising this script to friends for a long, long time, and when I went on vacation, I finally got a chance to sit down and write it.

My friends and I syndicate our content on wondergeeks.net, but we've never been entirely happy with the results. We're scattered all over the globe - from the UK to Hawaii - and it's difficult to keep up with multiple blogs marked in multiple timezones. Tuesday in England doesn't necessarily equate to Tuesday in Hawaii.

Sir:

Having wandered over to the Beast Buy parking lot from the restaurant across the street, we were alarmed to notice the existence of your car, which is plainly against the laws of Universe 57(b), Nebula 86XVI (records of which are available at various government agencies temporarily relocated to Omicron Persei 8 due to high consumer demand).

Someone asked me how much snow it takes to shut down northeastern Alabama. On January 23, the Great Alabama Snowfall of 2003, the answer was, this much. (What you hear in the background are my snow-blasé Yankee friends laughing their heads off.) Yes, this is the snowfall that provoked the messy detour to Atlanta that became the entry The McDonald's at 51a.

Hey, but this snowfall had big pointy teeth! Really! Grr!

First, before you read, see these photos of the Washington Monument that we took. You may now resume your regularly scheduled entry. - Amy.)

Broad view, Heather:

Close-up view, me:

We slipped away shortly after seven a.m., in more daylight than I expected for this early on the first of February. I took the first leg of the drive, slanting us east from Huntsville toward the sudden outcrop of hills just south of Chattanooga.