Home at last

We're finally home after our "assignment," which was actually a wonderful family vacation in California. A number of circumstances will really prevent normal blogging from starting again until Tuesday, but a more steady stream of content will be coming after that. A few random observations:

• We apparently picked the coldest week they've seen in Southern California in quite some time. I don't think it got above 65 degrees the whole time we were there. It was glorious, though -- it felt like early October in Minnesota, which is just about my favorite time of year.
• I hadn't been to California since 1980 and much has changed since then. The last time I was there I didn't spend a lot of time north of Los Angeles, but since we were staying in Arcadia we were close to the San Gabriel Mountains. We don't have mountains in Minnesota, so it was pretty cool to see.
• We had the great fortune of spending an evening with Gino early in the trip and some time with one of my best friends from college, Rob Driscoll, late in the trip. While there are tourist attractions galore in Southern California, seeing good friends may have been the biggest highlight.
• Politics seem far away when you are traveling. There's a lesson in that.