This weekend Sandi and I visited our son and daughter who live in Raliegh, North Carolina. It is a 3 1/2 hour drive so we don’t visit all that often but when we do it is always a good trip and well worth the time we spend on the road. Part of the dynamic of life is seeing your kids grow up and make lives of their own—part of the enjoyment is visiting them on their turf and doing some of the things they enjoy doing.

Raleigh is a great place for me to visit but I am glad that I don’t live there—too many temptations. I tend to drink too much coffee at Starbucks and spend time and money I don’t realy have at Barnes and Noble Bookstores. And as far a that goes we will leave that alone for now.

In the process of thinking about our visit this past weekend, I was made aware of the fact that there are 6.7 billion people in the world at this point. A lot of them live in Raleigh and have cars and drive on the expressways and get in accidents when I visit—that is a fact of life. You really have not lived until you are stuck in traffic for a while and practicing your stop and go driving.

I do like the fact that a big city like Raleigh can support many of businesses that I tend to frequent—used book stores, Asian restaurants, little markets and thrift shops.

Anyway, it was a great trip. We were able to see our daughter Jessika’s art banners that are hanging in downtown Chapel Hill. They look fantastic and hopfully are just the beginning of her commerical art career. I took this picture of her against the biggest installation.

As you can see, this art banner is really pretty big. The installation (about 10 separate pieces) has not been without its challenges but hey, life doesn’t always just roll over and come easy—sometimes we have to get in the pool and get wetter than we had planned in order for things to work out. Anyway, it is first for Chapel Hill and a first for her as well.

Here’s to the future.