This week has flown, mostly because I had a whirlwind bit of travel here in the past few days.  I worked part of the day Tuesday before heading out to spend time with the girls before taking them to camp.  Then I hit the road to Pburgh where I caught up w/ Eggs for dinner (got my BBQ fix on) and to a hotel for the night before flying out in the morning.  PIT to Phoenix and then on to Oakland.  That in and of itself is a full days worth, but I was then picked up by folks who went a day or two earlier and we headed to afternoon meetings at Berkeley (admittedly that was kind of cool).

Got to spend the night at their guest house.  Wow the views!  They're basically built climbing up the side of the hill, which will let me tell you, allow even your most comfortable heels to create a blister pretty quick.  Next day a few more discussions on campus and then a meeting off campus towards San Francisco.  Since we were over there and had a few hours before our red-eye back we went across the Golden Gate Bridge, drove down the windy street, and spent a short period of time at Pier 39.  If RC were sailing out from around there, it would be a nice place to spend a day or to.  I'd love to go tour Alcatraz.

I got back into PA this morning, and after our drive back was home by 1.  Snagged the girls at 5 and I'm ready to drop into a coma tonight.

I also have to say that I make fun of California for the hippies, and it's a little painfully true.  Examples:
- Burgers everywhere.... turkey, veggie, some other type... none you and I are thinking of.
- Everything is marked as organic, hand fed, humanely raised, blah blah.  Heck, the tuna sammie listing even said it was 'dolphin free'.  I get what they're trying to say there, but it made me chuckle.
- We weren't sure how to dispose of our trays after lunch... the garbage was split into too many options.  Fortunately, when we got up and went to the garbage area everything was marked as to what went where.

I will also say that I wish I had a desire to be in CA.  There were a lot of young and good looking (also incredibly intelligent) guys there, including the one with a delightful french accent.

So the hives are still here... my face and neck has cleared, but I have spots still on my hands, arms, and legs, the legs are quite itchy I might add, my legs are scratched a bit raw.  I decided to look back to when I had a burst of hives before, at that point I had attributed it to a new birth control pill that had iron in them.  Today I look back and see that happened at the end of August last year.  With us heading into cooler weather seemingly early this year, could it be something local?  They didn't taper off while I was away, so does that mean it has nothing to do with something local? Fortunately, I can ask the allergist more questions at my appointment at the end of the month.