"Well, I'm Back"

I have just read the last line of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King to my eldest son, completing the year-and-a-half project of reading the books out loud to him. It's amazing how moving much of Tolkien's dialogue can be when spoken aloud (especially much of the speech of the Rohirrim). Of course that is balanced out by lengthy passages and genealogies rivaling some books of the Old Testament (or Tanakh, depending on your preference) in their difficulty to read aloud. The title of this post is also appropriate for my return to regular blogging, which I tried to do last night before a Blogspot outage shut me down.

I note that Professor Hall is back with regular postings and a great "what I did over my vacation" post. I had a similarly fun break for the last two weeks, although with less traveling.

We spent the weekend before Christmas exploring Dinosaur Valley State Park and Fossil Rim nature preserve in Glen Rose, Texas (about an hour and a half from where we live). We stayed in town for Christmas, but thanks to the babysitting duties of my wonderful parents-in-law, my wife and I got away for a couple of days after Christmas to a fantastic bed and breakfast in the Texas Hill Country. We spent time enjoying good food, walking outdoors, shopping in Fredericksburg, and visiting the National Museum of the Pacific War.

I've lived here almost my entire life, and am still amazed at the treasures Texas offers up.