Currently In Cold Blood By Truman Capote see related

It seems this is the Summer of Travels.  Last summer was the Summer of America, and the summer before the Summer of Jeff (which went not as badly as the Summer of George, since he had physical therapy while I only had lecturer orientation).

Almost immediately after handing in final grades, I took to the road and just kept driving west until I hit ocean.  Maybe it was stress or sleeplessness or who-knows-what, but I felt I had to get away.  In brief, my journey:

• The Farm:  drove north to home, getting a good meal and a quiet night's rest.  City life is too noisy.
  
• Denver:  on my first drive-through, seemed like an endless string of liquor stores and pawn shops.  Fortunately, I stayed a couple of days to see the UDenver campus, plenty of city parks, the Molly Brown house (though she never went by "Molly"), and the awesome Art Museum.
  
• Northwestern Colorado was awesome.  Sometimes, I was literally the only human being for miles in any direction.  Utah gives me the heebiejeebies.
  
• I was in busy traffic from the time I got to Reno to the time I left California.  The West Coast has way too many cars to be so pro-environment.
  
• Hung out with J and Carisa for a week, seeing Stanford Campus and lots of sights in San Francisco, all the while eating a delicious variety of foods.  One day, I walked about 16 miles across hills and Golden Gate Park until I put my hand in the cold Pacific.
  
• I saw far too many hoboes.  And too many of those demanded money be given to them.
  
• Las Vegas wasn't impressive, other than the night lighting and the volcano show at the Mirage.  The Hoover Dam, however, was spectacular.
  
• The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is cooler than the south.
  
• Roswell, New Mexico, is an amazing place.  Small town feeling (oddly similar to Enid), ample museums (one featuring Robert Goddard's workshop), and aliens seem to pop up every which way.
  
• Even Lawton, Oklahoma, has a nice sushi place.
  
• Along the way, I read a pile of comic books and listened to audiobooks:  Lewis Black's Me of Little Faith (interesting introspection, much of which I didn't agree, but provoked good thinking; wide topics; and plenty of jokes, provided you like his style...  "I refuse to consider seriously anything that Tom Cruise believes in"), Beowulf (a long overdue classic; good phrasings in the 1920s translation of compound words, and plenty of fighting), and In Cold Blood (the tale of robbery and murder of a farming family in cold blood, written by Truman Capote, and, though repetitious in parts and meandering, definitely had great senses of description and personality... plus, the guy who did the reading had goofy voices for each of the characters!).

Not a bad way to spend the first weeks of summer.  When I got back, it was time for SoonerCon, and I got to be a guest again.  The panels were fun, chatting about making up religions and