Ok, I’m trying to stay up past eight tonight to combat my crap-ass jet lag. Except for Tuesday night, the night of my return, when I collapsed on the futon and slept all night, I have fallen asleep early and risen in the middle of the night. I have to break the pattern, so tonight I pledge to remain awake until at least 9:00PM. Rock and roll!

This morning I was up by three or so. I watched the rest of “The Office”, polished the Italy journal (slow going, by the way, I’m still early in the trip), and ate pizza. In fact, I’ve been eating like a madman since my return to the states. What, I can eat whenever I want? I’m all for it. I also think fatigue is playing a role in my gluttony. When I’m tired I eat everything in sight. After breakfast and a shower we decided to drive west to Holy Hill. Here’s a link to their website:

http://www.holyhill.com/

Mapquest had the trip clocked at just under an hour, but I figured we could knock twenty minutes, at least, off the predicted time. However, someone (probably teenagers, according to T) fucked with a street sign, and we detoured in the wrong direction. Still, we probably arrived at the site within the mapquest hour. The trees along the route were brilliant red and yellow. S was pissed from an earlier incident in which he lost Wii privileges, so he was a bit pouty, but the kids brightened when they saw the church. They agreed the church (basilica, whatever) was the largest they had ever seen. T, God bless him, said, “Didn’t you get enough of this in Italy?” He’s a smart kid. I think I wanted to visit Holy Hill to compare the shrine to those I saw in Italy. The experiences paralleled each other in interesting ways. For example, while we were approaching the church a group speaking what sounded like Polish or German stood around the door taking pictures. Put me back a week and move me a few thousand miles east and I’m one of those people, speaking a foreign language and hanging out at pilgrimage sites. The church is huge by local standards but has nothing on Rome, of course. Also, the church is pretty much brand new, fresco-less, and the bathrooms were probably clean (I didn’t check). We first took an elevator to the church entrance, way up high (another similarity to some of the Italian pilgrimage sites). The colors on the trees were beautiful. A hawk cruised lazily back and forth at our eye level. We walked through the church (T noticed the Hail Mary written on the walls, and said, “that’s a football play!”) and looked for a walking path, but we couldn’t find one, so we headed home.

I gave S a free pass on the Wii-banning, so he went upstairs for some backyard football while N and I played heroscape and M and T hit autumn’s last farmer’s market. Later she took the boys to the park while I inhaled cookies and screwed around on the computer. I also purchased a cool pencil box from an Australian girl I know from the eels board. I’ll post a picture when it arrives.

Ok, that’s it for now…S and I may watch the Indians/Red Sox soon. Get some sleep.