Big Moves and Less Blogging?

I am going to squeeze out a few posts today as I didn't quite wrap up my blog year the way I usually do since I had much grading to finish and because I am helping my daughter move to LA this week.  Yep, driving across the continent in mid-winter.  I have done this drive a few times with this year being the 30th anniversary of the first (when I started grad school in San Diego), so it is familiar.  We don't have much time to stop and engage in tourism (sorry Frozen Niagara Falls), but we will take a gander at the Grand Canyon and stop in a Route 66 town before that one bit of tourism.  Oh, and we might just take it easy and check out a street corner in Winslow, Arizona.

Why is College Spew going to LA?  To become Intern Spew.  She's a film-maker, and she is going to where much of that is done.  She may return to Canada to Toronto or Vancouver at some point, but right now LA is the place.  I watched her senior thesis the other day, and again was most impressed.  A very ambitious project that was quite moving and a nice twist on "the gang must get together and save the failing bar" tale.  The hard part was not getting the use of a bar but of corraling the actors and crew.  Volunteering means you have nothing to lose... by shirking one's commitment.  But she managed anyway.

The hard part for this trip is squeezing everything into one car.  My spatial geometry skills will be tested.  We have enough podcasts and other stuff downloaded to keep us entertained.  I may even review a journal article along the way.  I also have to do the reading for my first class since I get back the day before classes start.  I will have two days in LA to get her settled and then I have to get back to winter and teaching.  

As I said, I have done this before, but I was younger and more nimble. On the other hand, I didn't have the internet nor smartphones the last three or four times I crossed the continent (NY->SD, SD->UVM, UVM->TTU, TTU->Virginia).  That will make restaurant choice and hotel arranging easier.  And, yes, I hope to take pics and video along the way which I will try to post nightly to chart the adventure. 

I am pretty sure she will be sick of me by the end of the drive.  That make it easier on her when I leave, but, well, it ain't going to be easy on me.  Time to invoke Sunrise, Sunset and all that.

or I could just: