The Cheese State

Hmm, it's actually the Dairy State, but I think The Cheese State has a much nicer ring to it.

Dad got to Brooklyn Friday night and we met up with the guy who bought my couch and chair (I love you, Craigslist) and got that moved. After a delicious dinner of Dumac & Cheese at DuMont with dad and my roommates, we headed home to load the Suburban. Since dad is really hardcore, we finished everything by midnight, had a glass of wine with Aruna and set an alarm for 4:30am.

We got up and were on the road by 4:45, which put us back in Wisconsin by 6:30. It was intense - I made dad stop at a Cracker Barrel for some breakfast at 7 and I could tell he was getting jittery with all the "wasted time." I decided that hash browns and eggs were more important then getting home 15 minutes earlier. Anyway, we hauled ass home. Since the Suburban has all kinds of bells & whistles, we could tell that the engine was running for 15 hours and that we'd averaged 67 miles an hour all the way home. Dad says he's never averaged more than 60 for a long trip. Seriously - we hauled ass.

The weekend was gorgeous - the new jet ski was in the water, I managed to get up and "shred" behind the boat (my brother took an old wakeboard and removed the bindings and fins, then put surf wax on it), drank some beer, ate a lot of grilled meat and cheese and generally had a great weekend. Yesterday it poured so my sister and I went to the gym and then went through some of my junk, trying to figure out what to do with all of it. Most of it is being given away - it's kind of nice to do a complete cleaning of all the accumulated stuff I have. Today marks the 5 week mark - I'll be in Philly 5 weeks from today for my 3 days of staging before leaving for Guinea.

Since I've been home, I've eaten spread cheese (3 kinds), string cheese, cottage cheese (2 kinds), cheddar cheese, and taco cheese. Oh, and a slice of pepperjack cheese on a chicken sandwich. It's been amazing. But I might have to expand my diet a bit.