Most people, including roadgeeks/roadfans, and otherwise do enjoy the beauty of the natural wonders this planet has to offer. Whether it’s national parks/preserves, state parks, or even a local preserve, I could vouch that most of us here enjoy a little time away from our mostly suburban surrounds and urbanized dwellings. It’s the one thing many generations and even eras spanning thousands of lifetimes have in common, and they evoke many stories, tales, rituals, and tap into our pasts and inspire us in ways sometimes words cannot reflect.

Many of us also enjoy the sight of a stacked overpasses, the ways and paths which scurry across our lands, towers of metal criss-crossing in the right ways in elegant formations, the sounds and sights of motoring, and buildings galore…both the old and quaint to the megaliths that etch a city’s enduring silhouette of its skyline. They form our identity, and give us bragging rights and shared memories for which are proud of and regale others with our conquests of these hallowed places.

Without either, I wouldn’t know where I am in this world, I suppose. In all kinds of ways, we need both. We aren’t going to collectively regress back to a pure, natural world. It doesn’t exist, and it hasn’t since we discovered how to make tools and weapons; of which man required knowledge of manufacturing, and timely use for survival. That world wasn’t the lovely haven our deeper nostalgia wants it to be, it was untame and animalistic, not to a fault, but in reality. We didn’t live long, and nature generally had the upper hand!

But we can’t live without it; having all the land the same isn’t really interesting, not exciting. There’s something about travel from one city to another that involves the cross of some sort of natural threshold, that seems to awaken an explorer or conquistador within me. It’s as if you’ve discovered a new land, or made a journey with a finite start and terminus. Symbolically, you return again with the gifts of knowledge of a place you hadn’t been before, and hopefully discovered something about yourself…Or maybe you’re just commuting home, putting another piece of currency that can transform itself into most anything you can afford.

I think you have an idea that an environmentalist is someone who is essentially jobless and speaks for the trees, blocks the path towards progression. But I think a lot of us are at heart, sometimes bit hurt at the colder changes that progress brings, when we see urban decay rot the core of a town, and consume the outer fringes of the city, walling its identity. I think sometimes we blanch at the thought of an other planned development that bears no seemingly unique elements compared to the one across the road. But there’s people in those circuit-board developments, the rural areas that dry up, and the blight and deprecation of the city, too…people who have dreams and visions and hopes to get away from their fellow man and spend a few moments with nature, whether hunting, fishing, strolling, hiking, gazing, photographing, sightseeing, or sharing some peace and quiet…something and somewhere so quiet that the only noise you can’t escape is that of your own heart beating.

Patch, the king of our household jungle, has passed away. He’d become a pretty reliable alarm clock, if we forgot to wake up and feed him. And although he wasn’t terribly friendly to me at first (just like Milo), he warmed up to me, and eventually our families, too.

Never visited the Cincinnati Airport, although technically, it’s actually in Kentucky. Stepped off the plane, and immediately switched myself to an exit row. Gold Medallion status has its privileges…Watched University of Kentucky smoke Baylor in the airport waiting area. Pilot told us about 30 minutes into our flight that UK won (they’d go on to win the 2012 NCAA National Championship that year).

Four hours later, we were landing in Los Angeles.

Toni, Toni, Toni wasn’t telling the whole truth, because it apparently does rain in Southern California. To be fair, it was the first time in five visits to California that it did rain while I was there. Since it was Sunday evening by the time I was in my rental car, the roads weren’t congested at all. Thus, hitting the 405 wasn’t as daunting as expected.

The next morning, it was time to make the 15 minute drive from the hotel to the work site. The main way to get there is along US 101 in Ventura County.

A few recent scenes from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport…