Interlude

---

Due to a family tragedy, we have not posted in a while. This is not the time or the place to relate any details of what has befallen us, but I feel I should say something about it, as much for my own therapeutic needs as anything else.

Much has often been made of the notion of travel as a metaphor for life. The Grateful Dead spoke of the "Long, Strange Trip" -- the Beatles of the "Magical Mystery Tour" and I believe that, as threadbare old metaphors go, it is still an apt one. Life, like a journey, is a path loaded with pitfalls and snags, but with something new to see around every bend, and over every rise. To make the trip requires a bit of hope, a belief that though the going may be rough for a time, soon there will be sights and feelings wondrous to behold. Perhaps it is to the advantage of the older, more experienced traveler to know that, as bad as things may go for a while, rewards await ahead if you can see it through. Life too can sometimes seem to be all dead ends, flat tires, and empty tanks, and that can cause us to lose hope. That's tragic, because in the end, hope is all any of us have.

For Cathy and I though, the trip continues -- older surely, and a little sadder, but still yearning to see whats over that next hill, and around the next bend.

---