The road west

Hello friend!

This is my virginal blog-post, so stick with me, and excuse me if I repeatedly try to fit the square blog (err block) in the triangle-shaped hole.

Yesterday I drove back into Portland. On the way I saw a bumper sticker that said "I'm so f***ing happy I could sh*t rainbows." But it didn't have stars. I knew I was back in a good place when I saw this sticker. Any town that allows that kind of statement to remain in public purview is alright in my book, despite my own reservations about pooping rainbows (and as many of you know, I love poopin).

But I digress. As many of you know, I drove cross country yet again this summer. Departing State College, PA with Hanu crammed in the back amongst two months of possessions for two people in a dog, which doesn't sound like much but it is in an Acura Integra. We left May 10th. The first pitstop was in Wisconsin, where I got to visit my parents, sister and a bunch of organic dairy farmers. It was great to visit with all of them, and far too short. Then it was up to Minneapolis for a couple days to pick up Rachel and visit with her family. Then down to Denver to visit Stacey, Jeff and Kate (my sister's family) which was nothing but giggles (apparently now my niece repeatedly asks for group hugs) until she gave each of us a stomach virus that seemed to have a specialization on moustachioed men. It was reminiscent of the last time I was in S. Asia, and was probably good prep for my trip (this blog has SIGNIFICANT potential to discuss bowel movements pretty often: you are now forewarned). But the GI issues did not prevent a night of camping and a brief visit with my relatives Penny & Joel outside Redmond, which was, as always beautiful and joyful.

And now I'm in Portland. I'll hopefully drop a few blogs about PDX and the haps here before I head to S. Asia, but as you might have guessed the big reason for the blog is to maintain lines of communication with the folks back home. I hope that you are one of them, and I hope that we both are able to stick with this.

So that's it, this is my first blog post. I hope it went over alright.

Also, there is a special prize to the person who guesses the inspiration for the blog title. The hint: Its from a musician who my brother Greg introduced to me as a kid.