My absence from the blogosphere was due to a trip I made to my dad's last place of residence before his recent death. We went to visit his wife and to pick up some personal items, or as I later described them, a lifetime of memories spread out on my dining room table. There was a huge gap between the loss of my parents. My mother died when I was only 19 years old, and my father when I was 56. The content of the two boxes I brought back home with me included things like both of my parents' high school diplomas, my dad's elementary school report cards and his college yearbooks, and tons of family pictures. It was a very emotional experience going through all of it. I'm hanging on to a few things of my dad's: his college ring from Tulane University, a Tulane cap, a hole-in-one certificate, and a few pictures. I'm sending the rest to my sister and brothers to divide up as they see fit. I'm going to retire and live out my life in Thailand--it doesn't make much sense to bring a lot of memorabilia with me. I'll scan a lot of the pictures and keep it that way.

As far as my fitness quest goes, the trip was NOT a good thing. It started out fine. Instead of the usual munchies that I would take in the car like Triscuits, or gummy bears and the like, I kept a bowl of baby carrots handy. I also ate pretty good meals while there but I also ate some deserts that definitely not on the plan. I did get in a couple of walks including one that was on rolling terrain around a beautiful lake in northwest Arkansas. I would have loved to have had a mountain bike to do loops on that road. But the bottom line is that I'm too afraid to step on the scale right now. Maybe next week after eating right and getting in some workouts.