My poor, neglected blog. I feel we had a hot and heavy affair while I was on the road but our love has since lost its luster and passion. Like any marriage it’s going to take work to get us back on track. I know it’s mostly my fault. I work too many hours and when I come home I’m tired and slump down on the couch. You deserve better. We should take a trip together and see if we can’t stir up some of those old feelings.

Travel plans are in the works but I need more focus. Currently I need information and commitments from others before I can really start focusing on details for a trip to Europe. Traveling alone is great because I do what I want. Some of my future plans however need others to commit and give me concrete dates and places. Until then I’ll give some ideas of what I’ve been doing.

To better myself (mostly my photographs) I’ve purchased private photography (alliteration!) lessons. I’m hopeful that I can come up with clear and interesting pictures in the future. Also I lost 18 lbs so far (bragging!) because an old friend didn’t recognize me in one of my vacation pictures. His response to my picture was motivation to eat better, so thanks Martin! Hopefully for my next trip my pictures will be in focus and have 1 chin per person.

I moved to Delaware in 1991 and since that time my family in Ohio has been promising to visit. They want to go to the beach, NYC, Atlantic City, and the Lancaster, PA outlets. All of these are close to me and I’m familiar with them. When I was in Alabama my cousin emailed me saying she wanted to go to NYC. Since my family never visits, I thought she was all talk. I emailed her back and she called my bluff. On a Wednesday morning she told me she was coming that weekend. Two days to plan a trip to the city, I can do that.

She drove from Ohio to Delaware Friday night, we drove to NYC Saturday morning, and came back to my house Sunday morning. Fifteen minutes after getting back to Delaware, she left for Ohio. She drove roughly 17 hours in 3 days. I’ve never felt so close to her. Little planning and a small time frame makes seeing New York difficult. But we had fun, ate well, and got lots of walking in. We also met this lady, and by met, I mean we got a sneaky picture with her.

Our biggest adventure was visiting Sleep No More. It’s a great concept of immersive theater in which there is no talking by anyone, visitors wear masks and are separated from their groups. Different scenes from Macbeth are acted out through 5 floors in a labyrinthine faux hotel. The entire experience is themed in a noir style. I enjoyed everything about it…except the other guests. They interfered too much with the actors, literally getting in their face to study emotional cues. The building, acting, and choreography were stunning. It was so beautiful it was overwhelming but the other people just pulled me out of it. When I’m super rich I’m renting the place out for the night.

It’s so large you would need to spend hours, maybe even a day, to see every scene. We were there for almost two hours and my cousin and I had completely different experiences. We both saw a scene of nudity (for shame!) and violence but involving different actors/characters. I saw a sort of Last Supper scene where she saw the destruction of babies (I don’t remember that in Macbeth). I highly recommend going, hopefully you’ll get a different crowd.

My favorite part of the evening was walking with Rachel through Chinatown when she screamed “Where can I buy a Mogwai?!” We didn’t find one but we did stop and shop at a tacky souvenir store.

Our goal for the day was to have some fun via drinking. After dinner in Little Italy and some loitering in Times Square, we realized we were failing and had very few drinks. At midnight we stepped into an Irish bar for a drink before hitting the hotel. Our bartender was a very Irish looking guy with stereotypical red hair. Strangely he was from Columbia and we only drank Vodka. We failed Ireland.

It all went down hill from here. Rachel wanted to dance. I wanted to awkwardly drink at a few bars while holding her purse. Goals achieved. Around 4am I made a friend. Apparently he felt a strange connection to me from across the bar and had to come talk to me. At some point he decided he wanted to be my life coach/cult leader. He tried to leave with us but had forgotten his coat in the bar. When he went in to fetch it, Rachel screamed “Run!” and we took off. Not sure how he got her phone number but he did text we could come back “no strings attached.” We had become Facebook friends in the bar but he has since de-friended me.

Back into our rooms by 4:30am and out by 9:00am. Basically our rooms, right in Times Square, were used as lockers and showers where we took a brief nap. Waste of money? No way, Rachel had a good time and finally visited her East Coast family!

This Saturday I’m reliving an experience I had in Wisconsin. I am having a mustard tasting party using the $70+ worth of mustard I got at the National Mustard Museum. I love that I used the word mustard three times in that last sentence. Be on the lookout for my next post detailing all of the mustard cooking I did. Mustard.