The oddest thing about these trips is how much life goes on no matter how exotic your location or experiences are. While I feel like I’m in suspended animation here in an Arabian Disneyland, my timeshifted friends and family back home are living their lives. Or not.

I was very saddened to hear of the death of Anita Rowland. She was one of the first bloggers I ever met and was one of the small group of folks who was at the first Seattle Blogger Meetup back in February 2000. We’ve been in touch on and off over the years and I think we both delighted at all the funny bloggy things that have happened in the seven and a half years since. I’ll miss her.

I also got bad news about my mom’s health situation last night that I don’t feel like going into more now. Things that we thought were better are not better and we’re back in the “more tests” phase. Send my Mom your good wishes if you know her or even if you don’t. That news, compounded by the thought of almost a day of travel alone to dwell on it, has really sunk any more “wow, vacation!” things I might be thinking and writing. Everyone makes difficult choices; my love of near-constant travel means that there’s not really a good time to get news like this to me. Still, I wish they could have waited. Pictures continue, but for all intents and purposes my trip is over. I’ll write from snowy Vermont.