Sob Story from Springfield

28.09.49: Days. Hours. Minutes.

In that time, my flight will take off from the Atlanta airport and take me back home again. I'm through. I received an email from an Orlando hotel asking me to fill out a questionaire about my stay a couple of weeks back. Half way down on the list, I was asked to count the number of nights in the past twelve months I have spent in a hotel. I did not count. Rather, I cried.

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. I didn't cry. But I did feel an overwhelming sense of solitude, loneliness and depression. Here it is, almost six months of living in hotels for two different jobs, visiting cities and towns across the midwest and eastern USofA ... why the long face? How many people dream of travelling across the country for their job ... a chance to see the world if you will (and also if you won't).

It's fine. It's interesting, don't get me wrong. In the past few weeks, I've seen Alabama (Birmingham, Talladega), Georgia (Atlanta, Americus, Swainsboro), Florida (Orlando, Ft Lauderdale, Hollywood, Tampa, Boca Raton), Tennessee (Nashville) and now Illinois (Springfield). And that's just in the past three weeks. It's been great. I love the opportunity to check out these cities and be able to say I've been there or here. I just want to spend some time in a home again.

One doesn't realize the value of home until one doesn't have it. How much do we take for granted... my oh my.

In any case, check out some of these pictures I've taken recently... I broke down and show you my true identity simply because there could be no better way to reveal it than in this photo taken with this blog's namesake (PHOTO DELETED 6/2/06). Then, a bus on our way to Tennessee yesterday. Third, Nashville at night. Fourth, my artsy shot of the front door of Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home. And last, the moon beyond the railroad crossing in midafternoon.