Next on the agenda was a play at the National Theater in DC with Anne and Carl. Anne obtained tickets for the presidential box at an auction, and she suggested that we see Mamma Mia, which Laura, of course, had never heard of. When I informed Laura that Mamma Mia was based on the music…

The major problem with the hike is that we got slightly off course, as the map below shows. After climbing straight up a mountain through a field of poison ivy, we concluded that we had gone the wrong away. That’s the type of insight two master’s degrees will bring you. We doubled back, turning an…

About three miles into the hike, we encountered the first problem: blisters. Jim’s blister was not so much a blister as a hole in his heel, the type of hole that might be formed by a cat repeatedly clawing the heel for hours. Jim broke out the new skin and mole skin to solve the…

To start the Odyssey, I had decided to go on a hike with Jim in the mountains in the western part of Virginia. We should have known from the start that the hike was doomed to failure. Before the hike even started, the entire state of North Carolina caught fire, causing Virginia to smell like…

Welcome to the sequel of Summer Odyssey: Summer Odyssey II – The Jackalope Strikes! Some of you may be wondering, why jackalope? It’s simple – jackalopes are awesome. That and they make Laura angry for some reason. It has something to do with them being “fake” and “not real.” I try to tell her that…