The Authentegrity Blog

I woke up to a driving rain and high winds. So much for driving back with the top down. I stopped in Louisville, KY and saw the biggest baseball bat I’ve ever seen.

I couldn’t even get back far enough to include the very end, which you can see, extends above the building. Louisville appears to be a very modern and clean city and one I would like to return to someday. It would be more interesting too if I weren’t making the trip solo.

The Smokey mountains are beautiful, even in the rain. I never imagined there were so many trees on the East Coast. Miles of tightly spaced hardwoods. The freeway snakes over and through the mountains, surrounded by trees.

The Sirius radio set to Classic 60’s part of the time and BBC Radio 1 the rest of the time, made the nearly 800 miles through Kentucky and across West Virginia (think lots of mountains and trees) and finally Virginia, float by. The Miata at 80mph is very comfortable and tracks like a train on rails. Even at 80mph, I averaged 30mpg, which means I have a consistent range of 300 miles per tank of gas.

You might notice that I didn’t end up going through Pennsylvania. I decided that a trip to Gettysburg really required a dedicated trip of its own.

I’ve already driven 3500 miles; thanks in part to several business trips this week. One to headquarters, which is located in Mclean, VA and then another to Maryland. Saturday I head to Maryland again for a conference.

I did get my camera back from Nikon yesterday, so hopefully I can get some time to give it some exercise.

Later,

Erik

I wasn’t allowed to write about my experiences in Iraq, so the blog has gone untended for the last 7 months or so. I’m hoping to begin again with some regularity, but for now, I’ll simply begin.

I left Iraq on April 16th and flew to the the UK for four days to explore and unwind. I returned to Charlottesville, VA on 22 April 08 and picked up my new 2008 Mazda Miata Special Edition on 23 April. Since then, I’ve put a little over 2500 miles on it. Not bad for less than three weeks.

Friday I decided to drive west into West Virginia. I drove for nearly 5 hours on twisting, two lane mountain roads until I crossed into Ohio where the landscape began to flatten out. I had only been to West Virginia once before, but I’ve never been to Ohio and it was much more rural than I expected. The mountains gave way to green farmland and small and old little towns. I visited the area known as Amish country before moving South to Cincinnati. I passed the Reds’ and Bengals’ stadiums as I crossed over the Ohio river into Kentucky. Kentucky is another state I’ve never visited before. The weather has been nice, which means I had the top down all day. The downside of a convertible? I spent 7 months in Iraq and never got so much as a tan. The first day I drove the car with the top down I got a sunburn on my face and arms. What’s up with that? Today was actually the 5th time I’ve driven with the top down. The weather in Virginia has been very nice, with sunny temperatures into the 70’s.

Tomorrow I head for Pennsylvania and then Virginia. I intend to see as much of the area as I can, for as long as I continue to work on the east coast. For the time being, I seem to be in great demand.

Last weekend I was able to spend time with Katie, my daughter, when she visited Washington, DC with her orchestra. We visited the Capitol and Mt Vernon and the concerts were very good; the last was performed at the National Presbyterian Church in D.C.

At some point I’ll post some of the 4000+ pictures I took in Iraq. It was an experience that changed my perspective on life and gave meaning to the casualty figures quoted on the news each night. I like to believe that what I did helped to prevent those figures from being significantly higher. For those who haven’t experienced the effects of a rocket attack or haven’t seen first hand what an IED can do, will not understand what is really happening every day in Iraq. It’s easy to call someone an insurgent, but what that means to a reporter is vastly different from reality.

Until next time.

Erik