Trip so far

On Tuesday we drove from Peoria, IL, to Radford, VA, so I could attend and present at ChemEd 2009, a chemistry education conference primarily directed at high school teachers. It was rainy from Illinois to West Virginia. We saw lots of lightning around Indianapolis, and in southwest Indiana we had to crawl along the interstate for nearly an hour as we waited to take our turn to cross where floodwaters were crossing the highway. Can you see the car in the flooded ditch in the picture? Wednesday, I attended the conference while Karen and Kris hung out with Karen's relatives in the region. That evening I met up with them for dinner in Roanoke, VA (and encountered the rain that had caught up with us from the previous day). Today (Thursday) I gave my presentation, which went pretty well. After the conference was done we visited Karen's stepdad and his girlfriend in the hills of western Virginia. He is extremely talented with his hands and loves making (among many things) miniature train stuff. After that we drove up to (or rather through...my GPS birthday present gives interesting directions sometimes)...Washington DC. Tomorrow (Friday) we plan to visit DC a bit...I was last there in 1986. To keep ourselves entertained on the long drives in our rental car, we have been listening to Harry Potter books on CD, but they seem to be creeping into all three of our dreams at night.