To Whom It May Concern...

This and that and CAMPING!!! After last year's camping adventure ( see here ) we weren't sure camping was in our future. But then we found a deal, on a 2000 Coleman Santa Fe popup camper. So, this past weekend we took it down to Pine Grove Furnace state park in PA. So it's July in PA, and the weather was nice. But it got cold at night. I'll give you the highlights, and the funny bits. I got out of work early Friday. The PUP (PopUP) had been loaded earlier in the week, but we had to load the food, clothes, and doggie into the SUV and hitch up. The DW (Dear Wife) had gotten most of the gear out on the back porch, out of the rain, but real easy to load into the TV. Took a little longer, I think I was slow cause of the rain, but we got it all loaded. Then I put the bike rack on the back, and loaded the bikes. Nothing left to do but hitch up the PUP. (Funny bit) I usually store the ball hitch and pin in the storage under the trunk of the SUV. Guess where it was at this point...

We took a vacation. It was the first week long vacation that didn't involve relatives (no offense) since our honeymoon. We went to Virginia. I'll like to the pics now: http://mark.phillk.net/gallery2/v/mkenyon2/Massanutten+Trip/ Sunday - Washington DC Zoo . Lot's of cool animals. Monday - Veg out... we drove around a bit and ate at Outback, but that was it. Tuesday - Tubing and more vegging out. Maybe a board game... definitely eating! Wednesday - Shopping The guys played Racquetball , not much else. (Isn't vacation great?!) Thursday - The guys went Snowboarding !!! My first time in 10 years. It was fun, but sadly, no pictures. Later to the meeting. Friday - Went to the pool, played more racquetball. Vegged out. Finished the second package of Oreos. Saturday - Steph and I went on the Skyline drive for a bit. More movies and vegging out. Sunday - Time to go home, but we didn't want to. So, let's swing by Baltimore and find Dave and Buster's . The girls did m...

So, some things NOT to do when you take your wife on a romantic getaway. 1) Don't take her to a grungy Burger King as your first meal on the way down. 2) After she's stressed about not getting a decent meal, DO NOT run over a defenseless squirrel while traveling at 75 miles an hour. 3) Do not let your wife unpack all your suitcases in your room and only then ask the front desk about the air conditioner that is crackling in the corner and has wires hanging out of it. 4) After you have re-packed your suitcases to go to the new room, and preferably BEFORE you lock the door of the old room, make sure your wife still has her wedding rings and other jewelry with her. 5) Do not let them give you a room that already has the inside dead-bolt locked, requiring you to wait 20 minutes in the hallway with all your luggage while you wait for the maintenance guy to let you in. That was the first day. After that things went well, and we had a good time. The aquarium was fun, Cheesecake factor...

So, yesterday, Wednesday, I embarked on my first out of state business trip for CAI. We were headed to DC. We got here at 8AM, got our rental car and were on the road by 9AM. I was driving. We got to DC and into a parking garage around 11:30 AM. Not too bad time-wise. We grabbed some lunch, a great deli on the corner of 3 St NW and E St NW, called Jacks. Took our lunch to the Judiciary building's cafeteria and ate. About 12:40 PM we headed up to the confrence/training room we were going to train in so we could be ready for the 1PM training. At 1:30, nobody was there. By about 3 PM we had found out nobody was going to be there, so we headed to the hotel and planned to be back the next morning. Just as we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, we get a call. The attendees are at a Confrence out of state (New Orleans) all week. So, instead of training in DC this morning, I'm here back at the office.

Here is the Wyoming pictures link . Enjoy!

Well, we made it to Wyoming and back. In this installment I'll tell you some of the highlights, the low points, and review some motels/hotels. The flights out (Philly to Salt Lake to Billings, MT) went fine. Got our car quickly. FYI for later in this story, Philly to Salt Lake is 4.5 hours. Found our way from Billings to Cody quite well. This gave us our first impression of what was in store. Along the route, we passed through what is called, the Bench. The Bench is a LONG, flat strech of road, with ranches on either side. We drove onto this area, and saw mountains ahead. 'Wow, nice, we should get to those in a few minutes.' 45 minutes later, we were continuing to think we'd get to them soon, but were beginning to wonder if it was some sort of illusion. They were growing in view, ever so slightly. That's just how BIG and VAST things are out there. I will consider Cody Wyoming the world's first 'tourist trap'. It was laid out by Buffalo Bill Cody to be sp...