bunrab | Kittens are cute.

And in other news, we're home again. We left Pittsburgh a bit later than planned, after some last-minute kitten watching. We had to stop in 2 different Giant Eagle supermarkets before finding one that wasn't completely out of Diet Cherry 7-Up, which is sold up there but not down here (the bottler for our area flat-out doesn't make it.) Since we were going to supermarkets, we took the state-highways, non-toll, non-interstate route, which is always fascinating. In fact, the whole drive is fascinating in many ways. One of the things about state highways leading out of large cities is the rather predictable but interesting pattern they follow in what kinds of businesses are on them, and how that tells us a lot sociologically. The change from used auto lots and sleazy "lounges" and biker bars and construction equipment rental and light industrial, till gradually we start getting dentists and credit unions in the mix as we slip from edge of the city into edge of the suburbs, and then we go up through florists and nail salons until we are in full-blown suburbia with supermarkets and Circuit City and other big boxes. The differences in highway signage in different places. The names of towns. Historical markers. Scenery. I much prefer the northeast, where once one is past the suburbs, it's mostly trees with occasional cows, compared to the Southwest, where it's mostly cows with very rare trees. The descent from high altitude is so fast in some places that one's ears pop - big chunk of state highway, winding road, with a 6% grade. Eventually on US Route 40, which is not an interstate in the Interstate Highway System, but is nonetheless an interstate highway, one of the very first, long before IH was a gleam in Eisenhower's eye. 40 overlays some other roads - at one point, I believe we were on IH-68, US-40, and MD-219 simultaneously. 40 eventually hooks up with IH-70, which turned out to have some fairly heavy holiday traffic at a couple points, so we stopped and ate supper at a diner in Frederick, back on 40 after it separates from 70 again for a while. (40 joins/leaves/rejoins IH-70 like that all the way across the country to Colorado.) If one is easily amused, driving this country's middle roads (somewhere between IH's and back roads) is endlessly amusing.

Now we are home, and I have a lot of food to recover from! The critters are all fine; the pet sitter did her thing. And I seem to have a sore throat, which I am doing my best to zinc-and-vitamin out of becoming a cold.