I'm back. Did you miss me? Do you still love me? How much?

Eleven or 12 days, can't be sure, 2,700 mile vacation drive, visit some relatives in Washington DC.  What a fantastic city, museums free everywhere, bikes to rent everywhere, monuments and parks and busses to jump and clean cut young people, good girl watching, fountains, water, sky, fun, universities galore.  I will not set quiet again while someone runs down DC, it is beautiful, steeped in history and culture, safe safe safe and it is our city, go there, see it.
Most shocking for me was the wilderness right in the city.  There are sharp little valleys winding all around in the city that have been left alone except for hiking trails through them.  You get down in these things and you can't see, nor hear (much) the city near by.  These wilderness trails connect to one another even out into the states around them some for a hundred miles.  My son jogs through one of these old groves along a stream up to his work, showers and changes into dress clothes refreshed, lots of people commute on these trails.  Just one of the fantastic unexpected things there.

Had 2 paths laid out for the return drive west to Kansas, finally decided on one that put me in Ron's (aka Sarge) hometown in southern Indiana.  Had'nt seen him since dirt was brand new.  Germany, USAF.  Short stop there, his family all works behind the bar at Hooters so we had to go, all those girls are his platonic cousins.  They take care of him it seems, nice bunch of girls.  I had a couple of actual beers, he had cold cat piss, they call it millers or something like that, it's why he cusses so much, cat piss causes that.  If you never met him I can tell you he can let lose with a flurry that is pure poetry, filth as an art form, he can cuss the paper off the walls sized or not, plus he can swing a cudgel like Babe Ruth reaching for the stands.  Well he took this picture of me while I was telling him how GD and Lockheed and Boeing keep loser defense contracts from being canceled.  Place a purchase order in as many congressional districts as you can, look under every rock for a supplier and machine shop or someone who will scream if their little contract is threatened, Not sure he was listening with all the tight shorts running around in there delivering oily hamburgers.
I see on his blog he wants to make you think I am some kind of stick man.  164 lbs, 5'9" & no pot belly.  Look at the health charts.  That is the correct weight, maintained on a near exclusive plant based diet.  Well that's all good fun, I am going to keep after Ron, and anyone who is of a rotund stature, cut that weight and give some relief to your knee feet back and heart.  I'm pull'n for him, and all of you.
Glad I stopped in Ron, thanks for the beers and the fun, now get busy writing.

Now, how about it, how much?