We got to our friends' house in Columbus in time for a quick shower before heading straight downtown with Kelly to meet Sean at Nationwide Arena where he currently works. He gave us a tour then we watched the Blue Jackets lose in overtime at a sold-out Valentine's Day game. Sean worked with us in Raleigh and they both lived upstairs from us with their two dogs, Lucky and Keyla. Sunday we slept super-late then walked around a bit before meeting some of their friends at a family style Italian restaurant in the Arena District. The eight of us had a good time eating and laughing at the potato that Niles dropped into Amie's beer while serving up an unusual dish. After, one couple was headed to a drag-show/benefit. They said they go every year and it's hilarious. So we all decided to tag along. Upon arriving, we found out it was a screening of a documentary, along with three live numbers, where usually it is all live numbers. But the 28 minute film was excellent ... it told the story of the Rubi Girls, who have been dressing up and performing for over 15 years in Dayton, OH, and have raised over $140 thousand for AIDS/HIV related causes. One of the members was the director/producer of the film, which was a good mixture of comedy and seriousness, and short enough to keep you interested and wanting to see more. After the film they performed their most popular number, RubiDance, a satire of RiverDance and Lord of the Dance etc. The performers opened the floor up for questions after.

Monday Kelly and Sean went to work and we slept late (again -- someday we'll get off West-coast time) and went to a trendy mall for lunch and free wireless internet. We had dinner at Amie's cousin Joe's house with his family Natalie, Francesca and Joey. The children entertained us before bedtime and then their very sweet pooch, Ted, insisted on returning downstairs after tucking Joey in. It was great to get to spend time with them as we hadn't gotten to see much of Natalie and the kids at last summer's family reunion. We all had fun mocking a reality TV show and then we headed back to Sean and Kelly's house.

Tuesday we drove to Cincinnati to visit two of Niles' friends from Montreat. We had only seen them once since their wedding two years ago, when we all met in NYC for a Mets-Reds game. But they had left the baby with his grandparents then, so Cincy was our first chance to meet the one-year old Grayson. Wednesday Aaron took us to Skyline for lunch, a Cincy tradition of Chili topping spaghetti and hotdogs. Then we toured the city via car, and went to the contemporary art museum for a while. Finally

we headed to the new Great American Ball Park, where Aaron had arranged a tour for us. We met Russ, the Director of Scoreboard Operations for the Reds and Aaron's boss when he works game nights. We think he would work for free, since he gets to see much of the games, but they actually pay him, so he likes his second job a lot. Russ and Niles spent most of the tour in the control room checking out all of the equipment. The park is the nicest we've seen for baseball but we've only actually been in Shea, so we aren't really great judges. But as far as an entertainment facility goes, it's pretty top-notch. After our tour we met up with Ginny and had a nice dinner on the river.

The next morning we got up and hit the road, headed for PA. We had a pretty unadventurous ride home, although the last 200 miles may have been the longest of the entire trip! When we finally got home we found that everything was in order at home except for some squirrel damage that we already knew about. About a week after we left our neighbors Joe and Kelly who were watching our house found that a squirrel had gotten trapped in the house. They left he door open for a while and he scurried out. He had eaten the bottom part of several of our window frames trying to escape.

After a few days of relaxing, unpacking, and a day of skiing with our neighbor, we headed back to NC to visit with family and friends and return the fabulous van that carted us around the country. We are now back in PA, again, ready to get our noses to the grindstone in finding new jobs, possibly new careers.

So that, loyal readers, is the end of our story. We went West to find ourselves, and well ?. here we are. We hope that everyone enjoyed reading about our trip anywhere near as much as we enjoyed taking it. Thanks for all the support, and to all those who were gracious enough to have us for a day or two (or week) thank you so much -- you are all welcome in our home anytime. We will let you all know when and if we ever decide what we want to do with our lives?

Until then.

Niles, Amie and Alex.

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Thanks to everyone for reading, and especially to everyone we stayed with!

A very special thanks to Joel for getting our trip ON-LINE.

Don't forget to click on the link with the pictures!
Online house photos here.