We left Friday morning, just after six a.m. I awakened, groggy from fitful sleep, and dashed around the house doing errands in a stream of fogged consciousness; as I was putting out the trash for pickup, Kat and Sean arrived. We packed, we left.

The second half-hour of a long road trip is always somewhat disappointing. The rush and crush is over; you've left, and there's nothing to get excited about except the mind-numbing expanse of open road. Six and a half hours of highway driving to get to New Orleans.

The incredible variances inherent in people never cease to amaze me, and never more so than when I trek to Atlanta. The town itself both compels and repels me: the traffic, the arts scene, the incredible southern acceptance of varied cultures, the horrid traffic, the excellent restaurants and shops, the upper-crust hauteur…and the techops folks.

Under normal circumstances I would agree that the journey taken is better than the destination reached. This, however, I do not believe could be termed a normal set of circumstances. Our flights home: a truly nasty bit of thunderstorm downdraft coupled with delayed flights and sleep deprivation. In my mind, those can't compare to a relatively normal vacation.

Written on Saturday morning in Victoria:

* * *

Me, in shorts, sitting crosslegged in front of a locked hotel lobby in British Columbia. Such is the joy of getting up early to write and then discovering the joys of a) your spouse having the only room key, which you discovered (too late) that you needed to have to get back inside the hotel and b) that your travelling companions are still asleep and have the only key that will unlock the rental car.

We're on vacation. I—and the entries I post to domesticat—will return very very late Monday night. Cheerio!

- Amy

Yes, that, exactly.

Most of the past twenty-four hours have been spent in meandering preparation for canadatrek. The end result: I'm packed, and Jeff's packed. Everything that's required has been done, and the to-do list is down to more mundane things, like running loads of dishes and cleaning the litterbox.

The cats know that something's up. Every time Edmund and I cross paths, I receive a baleful kitty stare. Perhaps he has come to associate the smell of luggage with me vanishing from his life for a few days. If he has, he's a smart kitty. Tenzing, on the other hand, just wants to be played with.

Website-related news: at last, I have working code to make domesticat skinnable. I'm going to use the time while I'm gone to let the graphic-design part of my brain rest and rejuvenate. I'm working on a second skin, based off of a theme of storm clouds and lightning, but I'm waiting to get permission from the original photographer before I use the picture.