"lights will guide you home..."

This weekend has yielded a plethora of fun and exciting activities, including (but not limited to):

- A cumulative 2 1/2 hours spent at the Green Valley Book Fair near Harrisonburg - I'm now $30 poorer and 8 books richer.
- A 1,200-foot, seven-mile round-trip hike up North Mountain near the border of West Virginia, including a wall of fog at the peak and an unintentional "detour" that brought us out of the woods a little further down the road than we planned.
- A great three-hour discussion with 40+ people about finding spiritual themes in contemporary popular music genres.
- Smoking two cigars.
- Drinking 5 different kinds of Scotch, but only to moderate degrees of excess (if that's not too much of an oxymoron).
- "Butt buns" (so named for their "cracked" appearance) with apple butter and pecan pie.
- A sky full of stars with no city lights to muck things up.
- Having a church service outdoors at the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration at Shrine Mont in the beautiful fall weather.
- Eating at Bottom's Up Pizza in Richmond for the first time ever in four years of living in this city.
- Managing to avoid the score of the Auburn vs. LSU game for 24 hours, only to watch it on TiVo and see Auburn lose in overtime on a missed field goal off the uprights (this would fall into the "exciting" but not so much "fun" category).
- Calling my dad to wish him a happy 59th birthday.

And now, after 72 hours of perpetual motion, I am finally home. Exhausted, but mercifully close to my bed, as I am in danger of ending up face down on the keyboard. Pictures of the weekend to follow tomorrow, I hope.