I'm putting this at the top of my journal so folks can find things easily.

The beginning of the 2009 Biloxi trip. To go with it, here are all the pictures I thought worth uploading on the limited bandwidth I had.

For folks looking for my journal entries on 2008 trips:

• The Biloxi trip to fix Katrina-killed houses and all the pictures
• The South Dakota Trip and pictures

Under the cut are all my fictional pieces. Thought I might as well put everything in one place. So much of it is scattered so far and wide, it seemed like it might be useful to pull it all together and just stuff it at the top of my journal. I have a fic queue of things I'll probably work on in my link list.

One thing for you to know: I put everything that's PG or worse under an Adult Concept lock and everything that's R and worse under Explicit Adult lock, as the Adult Concept is supposed to work for 13 and up and Explicit keeps out folks under 18.

( The complete list of fanfic and original fiction and fanart for my fiction (wow). )

Our goal to day was Nashua, NH, in order to meet up with morgainelefae and rmd. We made it. Just. And even got good time with Regis at the hotel, both just talking beforehand and a little Monty Python Fluxx after dinner, while the laundry was done and the dryer nearly melted some of Jet's pajamas.... yeesh... commercial dryers...

( The amusements of New England Driving. )

John was up early, finishing details on how to meet up with folks when we're done here, and he found that he does, indeed, have my cold. I hope his Coldeze will help him more than my Airboure did. I had a really hard time with my breathing this morning, but by the time I'd downed a mug of coffee at the bakery a block down from the hotel and coughed up some stuff, I was better...

We weren't that ambitious with today, but Jet really, really, really wanted to climb Cadillac Mountain and go to Sandy Beach.

( And so we did... )

I have to admit that there's nothing quite like climbing up a rock wall with hundreds of feet in a drop below me for making me forget I have asthma. Maybe that's why I like adrenaline rushes, they really help make my breathing clearer, and I have something else to focus on.

Of course, the day started out a lot easier than that, and it was a lot easier going on 'a hike up to Beehive' when no one knew that clinging to the face of cliffs was going to be involved.

( The day started far more innocently than that. )

In the mid-1800's one Sylvester marsh of Littleton, N.H. went to Congress to ask for access up Mt. Washington for a railroad, the congressmen gave him the access and added permission to build a railroad to the Moon as well. They felt that the two were pretty much equivalent.

Mr. Marsh showed them otherwise. The railroad opened on July 3, 1869 and operated continuously up until this last winter, when they closed it for the winter for the first time, ever. Business for them this summer hasn't been good, and the weather hasn't helped either.

So we thought we'd help them out. *laughs* Eventhough it didn't really shine at the top, but then it rarely does.

( Read more... )

We spent yesterday morning a the Inn, the afternoon up at Bromley Adventure Park with the kids, and then spent the evening talking, watching each others pictures, and firing a potato cannon and Roman candles into the wet grass.

Today we packed up and headed North and East, past King Arthur Flour, to rest within six miles of Mt. Washington and the Cog Railway. My cold is worse, but we're doing stuff anyway. *laughs*

( Read more... )

Last night in the middle of the night, I heard a crack of thunder and saw the room lit with a flash even though the curtains had been drawn in the bedroom. The window of the bathroom was open, so I hopped up and went into the bathroom to close the window; and just as I managed to get it closed and battened down, the rain started pouring down as if someone had turned on a faucet.

( Read more... )

I am sick. Just some throat, sinus, and head thing that is knocking me for a loop.

tagryn has been doing some amazing work annotating a lot of my Philadelphia pictures with extra information that he remembers from the city; and, yeah, it was really cool to see the Liberty bell out in the open for everyone to look at. It has broken so many times, I think a lot of people there were starting to draw analogies to how hard it is to keep freedom, it's so fragile and breaks so easily from all the different metals mixed into it; but when it's whole it sings so beautifully and rings to loudly everyone knows.

The reunion has gone amazingly well. There are lots of people here. Anne and David and doing an amazing job of housing everyone and feeding everyone and people have been very appreciative. Yesterday was a trip to the first US Marble quarry to jump in and swim over 100's of feet of accumulated water (a small side-trip to a yarn store where I did some damage), today was a trip to see Jet's great-uncle Walt and bring lunch for 25+ after I slept in *late* and probably should nap again. Everyone has been wonderful.

( An enormous bonfire, jumping in a quarry, and a lobster fest. )

I now know why New Jersey is called the Garden State. It's gorgeous and lush and beautiful. We basically got up, had cereal for breakfast in our room and drove as direct a route as we could out by Bromely Mountain in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

( Read more... )

ross_teneyck, I hope you had a great birthday!

There's a lot here that always makes me realize just what a child of the Western United States I am. First of which was the dire need to go to Dunkin' Donuts for our breakfast. We don't have them where we are. *laughs* Also the sheer shock of seeing "Valley Forge" on a freeway road sign; and having to do a double-take on seeing a National Parks Ranger in the middle of a bustling city are both very much things that only a person from the Big Young Western States would do.

I mean, I'm used to Park Rangers being in the middle of the woods, on a mountain, or in the middle of a desert, as far from the bustle of a city as one can get. Seeing one with a hoagie in a bag in the middle of Philadelphia was a bit of a shock. All right, and having to explain to Jet that, no, really, a hoagie isn't a hamburger...

( Read more... )

In which we travel uneventfully, arrive uneventfully, and expect nothing from ourselves but finding our car, our hotel, and some dinner.

( Read more... )

Title: Yoruichi: Hunting
Series: Winter War
Character: Yoruichi, Urahara
Rating: PG for violence
Word Count: 587
Summery: Yoruichi takes Urahara on a small hunt about Karakura.
Author's Note: This is a small piece of a bleak AU incandescens, sophiap, and I are writing, where the Gotei 13 lost the winter war.

( Yoruichi hunted through the cold winter streets of Karakura. )

cadhla has written me poetry.

I am pleased...

sophiap has posted the next chapter to Winter War.

Karin: Keeping Up Appearances

Something John found recently.

This was taken probably ten years ago. 1998. As the backset is the forest growth at the back of our old Redmond house, that we moved out of in 1999. But that is the banker's suit I still fit in now. *laughs* Though I have no idea where those sunglasses went. Hm...

( Read more... )

To all those U.S. of A'ers that celebrate.

We had a doozy of a day, with 40+ people coming for a pot luck with plenty of grilled corn and smoked ribs and John's Jerk chicken and lots of salads and desserts that everyone brought and loved. And then, in the midst of it a thunderstorm just poured down rain until the back patio was an inch deep in water, even though it was supposed to be draining through all the slats. Everyone was good about making themselves comfortable in the house, ending up everywhere... on the floor, in the dining room, and even some ended up on our front door stoop, under the overhang there, just talking.

It was great fun, though, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The six quarts of hand-cranked vanilla ice cream ALL disappeared. THAT was impressive.

( Ice cream recipe, a bit more about today, and a bit about _Princep's_Fury_ by Jim Butcher with spoilers. )

I've been mildly depressed lately, but I've been trying to pull out of it. Doing something about it helps...

But it's amazing, after a 90° day how much my spirits are lifted through the simple reality of a rain fall at night. Cooling the air and the house. The sound of it on the aspens is nearly as amazing as the scent of water in the air.

( Stuff I've been doing... )