Hyatt Hospitality

I am relaxing in my hotel room until I get booted at the noon check out time. I had a nice 5 mi run earlier after a good night's rest. Last night I drove through the continental divide on route 521 due to the detour I ran into.  The road was twisting through the mountains in hair pin turns and patches of black ice- I bet it would have been gorgeous if it were day time. But I have not had to deal with bad weather at all so I feel pretty lucky.

At 1 today I will meet with a materials manager from the Carolina's Healthcare System. After that I will head just out of town to a federal park to find a good camp site.  This will be my first night not spent in a camping site with a shower and bathroom. But the good news is that I get to build my first fire circle, cut my own wood, and heat some dinner.

Congratulations to my son Mike for getting his driving permit. Of course that means he can take a turn driving on my next road trip- that is if I can overcome my control freak tendencies!  Mike will definitely help me do that since he is very responsible and I trust his judgement with my life. No pressure Mike!

I will apologize now to my friends Jay and Kisha. They are putting me up tomorrow night when I drop in to see their first child, Jayson. I will not have taken a shower so I will be a sad sight to see and smell.

Some good news:  There are no security checks or lines to get in my car. It is very unlikely that anyone wants to bomb my car, but I still use scrutiny when picking up all those hitch hikers.  But I don't profile!

Too late to help, but I just saw on the news why I had to take that long detour last night. Apparently back in October a major rock slide closed route 40. It will take until March to get the rock wall secured.  Seeing the TV footage of the boulders on the road somehow made the detour more palatable.