Washington DC* After diligently keeping up with my journal for almost two weeks, I’ve failed at the final hurdle, and not managed to write up the last few days. I would do it now, but it’s after midnight and I’m very very tired, and it’s going to be a big day tomorrow. So time to…

Charleston Our last full day of travelling today – by early tomorrow afternoon we should be in DC. It’s been such a wonderful trip that despite the lure of the convention and seeing so many friends again, I’m really not looking forward to getting to DC – I don’t want this all to be over….

The engineers signed off on our building on Friday afternoon, so I came in on Saturday and picked up everything off the floor and gave my office a good cleaning (with 11 weeks of accumulated dust plus a coating of plaster fragments for every aftershock it really needed it!), so I’m now sitting happily at…

Somewhere in southern Texas Yesterday was the first day that’s been mostly boring, but it did have its highlights. The main aim of the day was just getting from Lubbock to San Antonio – a very long trip mostly across more wide flat plains with not a lot to see. Just outside Lubbock was a…

Somewhere in Florida Today has been a day of many states. We started in Louisiana this morning, and have been through Mississippi and Alabama (or at least, through the little bits at the bottom of them), and now we’re in Florida, about four hours from tonight’s stop in Gainsville. We crossed the Mississippi river yesterday…

Still somewhere in New Mexico, about 50 miles from the Texas border Stopped for lunch in Roswell. Aliens are their only tourist attraction, so they make the most of it. As well as the “official” UFO museum there are half a dozen gift shops (or “UFO and Alien Stuff” shops, as several were called) posing…

I was right about the oil wells. Just across the border we went through hundreds of little wells, pumps bobbing up and down. Lots more wide flat grassy plains (prairies, I suppose?). Where they’re farmed they’re quite colourful – intensely red soil where they’ve been ploughing, green where it’s irrigated (the same huge irrigators we…

San Antonio, Texas Yep, another really late night. After a long reasonably boring day of driving (though there were a few interesting parts along the way), we hit the town tonight… well, sort of 🙂 We actually went for a walk along the riverfront among all the bars and restaurants, and had a look at…

Lubbock, Texas A very late night last night, as we all were reaching the end of our supplies of clean clothes so had to hit the motel’s laundry after dinner. There was only one machine, so it took a long time for our two loads to go through, and then even longer waiting for another…

Had a decent aftershock early this morning – a very noisy 5.3 that rumbled away for ages in that disconcerting way that makes you wonder if it’s going to build up into a really big one. It didn’t, but still not a good way to be woken up at 3am! The really annoying thing is…