Kinda Sorta AFK

 Monday morning, my wife Janet and I are flying from Rapid City to Santa Barbara, Calif., via Salt Lake City. From Santa Barbara, we’re driving north about 90 minutes to Los Osos (just north of San Luis Obispo), where we’ll spend the next two weeks. On Feb. 10, we fly from Santa Barbara to Orlando, with a very quick connection in San Francisco.

In Los Osos, we’ll celebrate my wife’s birthday, when we’ll be joined by her childhood friend (later this year, they’ll be going to Italy’s Amalfi coast to celebrate a half-century of friendship—delayed a year due to the passing of my wife’s mother last March). The following week, Janet’s brother and his wife will join us for a few days, and I’m hoping we get to do a bit of wine tasting, as well as enjoy a couple excellent local restaurants.

The day after we arrive in Orlando, our granddaughter and her parents will join us for the week—the Disney parks vacation was Alison’s Christmas present from her parents, and they were kind enough to allow us to join them. I’m really looking forward to revisiting Epcot after an absence of over 25 years.

We arrive home again on February 17, and we can only hope that spring will be edging its way into the Black Hills. However, I won’t be at all surprised by a lot of snow and bone-chilling temperatures, either.

Complicating our packing for a three-week trip is the fact that the weather along California’s central coast is expected to be in the 50s to low 60s during the day, dipping into the lower 40s and upper 30s at night. By contrast, Orlando should be in the low- to mid-70s. Hence, we’re packing for both climes, which means jeans, long-sleeved shirts and sweatshirts for California; shorts and tee-shirts for Florida: a quick way to increase the weight of your luggage by a third.

We don’t have Internet access at our vacation house in Los Osos; because it’s not used year-round, Janet and her brother (rightfully) agreed the expense of cable for TV and Internet wasn’t warranted. Instead, I have a Verizon USB wi-fi modem; however, I’m limited to 5GB per month. So, I expect to be able to check mail once or twice a day, and perhaps download my feed reader to the hard drive. I do expect to be able to keep up the blog, but articles will probably be shorter. And, I should be able to continue with my copyediting projects for Tami, Bre, and Iris. Obviously, WoW is out of the question: While my laptop can handle the game easily, my data plan can’t. At least I’ll save the weight of my laptop mouse!

I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch the Super Bowl, but I’m hoping for a barn-burner of a game. And if the Saints win, so much the better!

Talk to you again from (not-so) sunny California!