This is going to be a short entry, since it’s late and I’m still on vacation and feel almost guilty using my laptop at all. But I did want to flip the page and get the new month started before it got much older.

I’m now visiting my father-in-law just outside of New York City; take any of the comments I made about humidity in Richmond and double them. When we arrived yesterday and got out of the car, I thought I was going to collapse into a puddle of sweat within the first few seconds…but then I started to realize how hot and sticky it really was.

We spent a few days in and around Washington, DC, on the way up; we visited many interesting sites (I got pictures of some of them, but won’t upload them until I have a faster connection). Virginia has a gimmick for students this summer called Time Travelers, so Jeffrey wanted to visit at least six of the designated sites so he’d qualify for a certificate. Unfortunately, we didn’t know about Time Travelers until after we’d left Richmond, so we didn’t get credit for the Virginia Aviation Museum. And, of course, nothing in Washington, DC counts. But we did make it to six official sites, despite the horrible weather on Sunday, so he should be receiving his certificate in due course.

Finally (for now), I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the places we visited on Monday, en route from Alexandria to New York. It is at 39 degrees, 6.915 minutes North Latitude, 76 degrees, 46.523 minutes West Longitude. The location should be sufficient for the cognoscenti, but further details will follow.

I’m beat — vacation is exhausting!

I’m visiting my mother in Richmond, Virginia — actually, I’m also visiting my brother and his family, but I haven’t seen them yet, since they were out of town when we got here on Saturday. But that should change later today when we go over to their house and stay for a few days.

At any rate, we’re being greeted with fairly typical summer weather for Richmond — humid and hot, with the odd bit of rain (though no thunder or lightning yet, at least not that I’ve noticed). It’s probably cooler here than in San Jose, but it’s far less comfortable because of the humidity.

Today, I took my mom to the doctor’s for a regular checkup; just like at home, they ran late. Then we made three more stops in the same medical center — I guess she got wholesale rates today!

I did some checking on Google last night and found an update to the eMap’s firmware, which I’ll load as soon as I get offline; it should add a few useful features, such as the ability to set a waypoint somewhere other than where I am right this instant. I am getting very tempted to pick up the Garmin Metro Guide software so I can get detailed maps into the eMap, and DeLorme’s Street Atlas to do routing, since it talks directly to the eMap. I’m sure that if I think about it enough, I can find a reason other than “because I want it” to get the software, but that’s probably a good enough reason all by itself.

Jeffrey had a great day yesterday, visiting his favorite comics shop, Dave’s Comics. The owner, David Luebke, grew up with my brother and me, so it’s nice to see him occasionally — and Jeffrey sure appreciates the selection and the chance to get some comics his allowance won’t cover. Diane bought a toy, too, a set of Zuni Poi Swings. I was good and didn’t buy anything there for myself, so I must deserve the Street Atlas and Metro Guide!

Virginia Aviation Museum

We made a quick visit to the Virginia Aviation Museum, located at Byrd Field (oops, I’m showing my age! I should have said Richmond International Airport). We took advantage of the reciprocal membership program of the Association of Science-Technology Centers, which gave us free admission because we are members of The Tech Museum in San Jose; that makes us much more likely to make short visits to museums instead of skipping them because the admission fee seems expensive for the time we have available.

I’m glad we didn’t skip this one — they have a nice collection of pre-WWII planes as well as a good exhibit of WWII as seen from Richmond. Jeffrey also found an interesting blackbird there.